
Book__J~S_ 



PRESENTED BY 



i 



L U T H E E 



w; 



A SHORT BIOGRAPHY 



K- 



JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE, M.A., 

HONOBABY FELLOW OF EXETER COLLEGE, 
OXFOBD 



[Reprinted from the Contemporary Review] 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1884 



^"ffsfcS 



p. 

7 Ap'02 



■ • • • *.* ,* •,* •*,*««* • • • 



TROWS 

PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY, 

NEW YORK, 




?T=4\^. 



LUTHER 



-V 



s 



PEEFAOE. 

In the coming winter Protestant Germany will 
celebrate the four hundredth anniversary of the 
birth of Martin Luther. Princes, statesmen, sol- 
diers, men of letters, the Emperor himself, men of 
all ranks and all professions, will unite in doing 
honour to the memory of the miners son, whom 
they regard as their spiritual liberator. Such a 
movement, at a period when we hear much of the 
Catholic revival, is a sign of the times, and a re- 
markable one. "When the German States revolted 
against the Roman hierarchy, we in England re- 
volted also ; but there is no name, among the Eng- 
lish apostles of the Reformation, which commands 
the same respect as Luther's. Knox holds a posi- 
tion something like it in Scotland: Presbyterian 
Scotland is Knox's work, and the people know this 



VI PREFACE. 

and feel it. But even the Scots do not observe 
Knox's birthday. Not many of them, probably, 
could tell either the day or the year in which he 
came into the world. The great English Reform- 
ers, well as they deserved of us, stand in far lower 
esteem. For various reasons they have never been 
extremely honoured, and in these days seem less in 
favour than ever they were. 

Nevertheless, we are still a Protestant nation, 
and the majority of us intend to remain Protestant. 
If we are indifferent to our Smithfield and Oxford 
martyrs, we are not indifferent to the Reformation, 
and we can join with Germany in paying respect 
to the memory of a man to whom we also, in part, 
owe our deliverance. Without Luther there would 
have been either no change in England in the 
sixteenth century, or a change purely political. 
Luther's was one of those great individualities 
which have modelled the history of mankind, and 
modelled it entirely for good. He revived and 
maintained the spirit of piety and reverence in 
which, and by which alone, real progress is possible. 



PREFACE. Vll 

The English people, therefore, will not look on 
indifferent upon this occasion, as on a thing with 
which they have no concern. Germany takes the 
first place in the celebration, because Luther was a 
son of her own. But he belongs not to Germany 
alone, but to the human race ; and this little book 
is published that English readers may have before 
them in a comprehensive form the chief features 
of Luther's actions and character. 



LUTHER. 1 



At last we have a Life of Luther which deserves 
the name. Lives there have been many in various 
languages, and Collections of Letters, and the Table 
Talk, and details more or less accurate in Histories 
of the Reformation ; but a biography which would 
show us Luther in all aspects — as a child, as a man, 
as the antagonist of Popes and Princes, and as a 
father and householder in his own home, as he 
appeared to the world, and as he appeared to his 
wife and children and his personal friends — for 
such a biography Europe has waited till the eve of 
the four hundredth anniversary of his birth. The 
greatest men, strange to say, are those of whom 
the world has been contented to know the least. 

1 Luthers Leben. Von Julius Kostlin. Leipzig, 1888. An 
English translation of this book has just been published by 
Charles Scribner's Sons. 
1 



2 LUTHER. 

The ' lives' of the greatest saints of the Church 
are little more than legends. A few pages will con- 
tain all that can be authentically learnt of Eaphael 
or Shakspeare. 

Of Luther, at all events, this can no longer be 
said. Herr Kostlin in a single well-composed vol- 
ume has produced a picture which leaves little to be 
desired. A student who has read these 600 pages 
attentively will have no questions left to ask. He 
will have heard Luther speak in his own racy pro- 
vincial German. He will have seen him in the pul- 
pit. He will have seen him in Kings' Courts and 
Imperial Diets. He will have seen him at his own 
table, or working in his garden, or by his children's 
bedside. He will have seen, moreover — and it is a 
further merit of this most excellent book — a series 
of carefully engraved portraits from the best pict- 
ures, of Luther himself, of his wife and family, and 
of all the most eminent men with whom his work 
forced him into friendship or collision. 

Such a volume is singularly valuable to us, now 
especially, when the forces of the great spiritual 
deep are again broken up ; when the intellect, dis- 
satisfied with the answers which Luther furnished 
to the great problems of life, is claiming on one side 



LUTHER. 3 

to revise those answers, and his great Italian enemy, 
whom he and the Protestant world after him called 
Antichrist, is pretending on the other that he was 
right after all, and that we must believe in him or 
in nothing. The Evangelicals are faint-hearted. 
The men of science are indifferent. The Romanists 
see their opportunity of revenging themselves on 
the memory of one who in life wrought them so 
much woe and shame ; and had no such effort been 
made, Luther's history would have been overgrown, 
like a neglected grave, with the briars and nettles 
of scandal. The philosophy of history undervalues 
the work of individual persons. It attributes politi- 
cal and spiritual changes to invisible forces operating 
in the heart of society, regarding the human actors 
as no more than ciphers. It is true that some great 
spiritual convulsion would certainly have shaken 
Europe in the sixteenth century, for the Papal dom- 
ination was intellectually and morally undermined ; 
but the movement, inevitable as it was, might have 
lasted a hundred years, and the results might have 
been utterly different. If it had been left to Eras- 
mus and the humanists, the shell of Romanism 
might have survived for centuries, while a cultivated 
Epicureanism took the place of real belief and dis- 



* LUTHER. 

solved the morality of mankind. If the revolt 
had been led by fanatics like Carlstadt, or Zwingle, 
or Miinzer, the princes of the Empire would have 
combined to drown an insurrection in blood which 
threatened the very existence of society. That the 
Reformation was able to establish itself in the shape 
which it assumed was due to the one fact that there 
existed at the crisis a single person of commanding 
mind as the incarnation of the purest wisdom which 
then existed in Germany, in whose words the brav- 
est, truest, and most honest men saw their own 
thoughts represented ; and because they recognised 
this man as the wisest among them, he was allowed 
to impress on the Reformation his own individual- 
ity. The traces of that one mind are to be seen to- 
day in the mind of the modern world. Had there 
been no Luther, the English, American, and Ger- 
man peoples would be thinking differently, would 
be acting differently, would be altogether different 
men and women from what they are at this mo- 
ment. 

The Luders, Luthers — the same name as Lothair 
— were a family of peasants at Mohra or More, a 
village on the skirts of the Thuringian forest, in 
the Electorate of Saxony. 'lam a peasant's son,' 



LUTHER. 5 

Luther wrote; 'father, grandfather, greatgrand- 
father, were all peasants.' The father, Hans or 
John, was a miner. He learnt his trade in a 
copper mine at Mohra, but removed in early man- 
hood to Eisleben, where business was more active ; 
and there, being a tough, thrifty, industrious man, 
he did well for himself. The Mohra people were 
a hard race — what the Scotch call 'dour' — and 
Hans Luther was one of them. He married a 
peasant woman like himself, and from this mar- 
riage, now just 400 years ago, on the 10th of No- 
vember, 1483, came into the world at Eisleben his 
first-born son Martin. 

Six months later, still following his mining 
work, Hans moved his family to Man sf eld, a few 
miles distant, in a valley on the slopes of the Hartz 
mountains. He continued to prosper. He worked 
himself with his pick in the mine shafts. The 
wife cut and carried the wood for the cottage. 
Hans, steadily rising, became the proprietor of a 
couple of smelting furnaces; in 1491 he became 
one of the four Church elders — what we should 
call churchwardens. He drew the attention of 
Count Mansfeld himself, whose castle overhung 
the village, and was held in high esteem by him. 



6 LUTHER. 

Melanclithon, who knew both Hans and his wife, 
admired and honoured both of them. Their por- 
traits were taken afterwards by Cranach — the feat- 
ures of both expressing honesty, piety, and clear 
intelligence. Martin was the eldest of seven chil- 
dren ; he was brought up kindly, of course, but 
without special tenderness. He honoured and loved 
his parents, as he was bound to do, but he thought 
in his own later life that they had been over-harsh 
with him. He remembered that he had been 
beaten more than once for trifles, worse than his 
fault deserved. 

Of the village school to which he was early sent 
his recollections were only painful. He was taught 
to read and write, and there was what pretended to 
be an elementary Latin class. But the schoolmas- 
ters of his childhood, he said, were jailers and ty- 
rants ; and the schools were little hells. A sense 
of continued wretchedness and inj ustice weighed on 
him as long as he remained there, and made his 
childhood miserable. But he must have shown 
talents which encouraged his father to spare no cost 
on his son's education that his own scanty means 
would allow. When he was fourteen he was sent 
to a more expensive school at Magdeburg, and 



LUTHER. 7 

thence, after a year, to a still better school at Eisen- 
ach, where he was taught thoroughly well, and his 
mind began to open. Religion, as with all superior 
lads, became the first thought with him. He asked 
himself what God was, what he was, and what God 
required him to do ; and here the impressions of 
his home experiences began to weave themselves 
into what he learned from books. 

The old Hans was a God-fearing man, who 
prayed habitually at his children's bedside ; but he 
was one of those straightforward people who hated 
arguments about such things, who believed what he 
had been told by his priest, but considered that, es- 
sentially, religion meant the leading a good life. 
The Hartz mountains were the home of gnomes 
and demons, or at least of the popular belief in 
such things. Such stories Father Luther regarded 
as lies or tricks of the devil ; but the devil himself 
was a grave reality to him ; while the mother be- 
lieved in witches, and was terribly afraid of them. 
Hans himself could see straight into a good many 
things. He was very ill once. The parish priest 
came to prepare him for death, and suggested that 
he should leave a legacy to the Church. Hans an- 
swered, ' I have many children ; I will give what I 



8 LUTHER. 

have to them ; they need it more.' He bad some- 
thing of his son's imagination. Looking one day 
over a harvest field, Martin heard him say, ' How 
strange to think of the millions of men and women 
eating and drinking all over the earth — and all to 
be gathered into bundles like those cornstalks.' 
Many such speeches young Martin must have re- 
membered and meditated on. He had a happy life 
on the whole at this school at Eisenach. He is de- 
scribed as having been a merry quick young fellow, 
fond of German proverbs and popular songs and 
stories. He had a passion for music, and helped out 
the cost of his education by singing carols at night 
from door to door with three or four companions. 
A Frau von Cotta, the wife of a rich Eisenach 
gentleman, took notice of him on these occasions, 
made acquaintance with him, and invited him to 
her house. 

His promise was still great. His father, who 
had no leanings for priestcraft, designed him rather 
for the law than the Church, and when he was 
eighteen sent him to Erfurt, which was then the 
best university in Germany. It was the period of 
the revival of learning ; scholastic pedantry was de- 
posed from the throne where it reigned so long, and 



LUTHER. 9 

young men were beginning to breathe freely, in the 
fresh atmosphere of Ovid and Yirgil and Cicero. 
Luther rose rapidly by the ordinary steps, became 
Baccalaureus and Magister, and covered himself on 
the way with distinction. He attended law lectures 
and waded into the Corpus Juris ; but desires were 
growing in him which these studies failed to satisfy J 
In the University library he found, by accident, a 
Latin Bible which opened other views of what God 
required of him. He desired to be good, and he 
knew that he was not good. Lie was conscious of 
ambition, pride, vanity, and other young men's pas- 
sions, of which the Bible told him to cure himself. 
He was not a man in whom impressions could be 
lightly formed, and lightly lost ; what he felt he 
felt intensely. His life had been innocent of any 
grave faults, but he was conscious every moment of 
many little ones. ' Alas ! ' he said one day when 
he was washing his hands, ; the more I wash them, 
the fouler they grow? The loss of an intimate 
friend brought vividly before him the meaning of 
death and judgment. The popular story of the 
young Alexius, said to have been killed at his side 
by lightning, is, in itself, a legend ; but the essence 
of it is true. Returning to Erfurt, in the summer 



10 LUTHEE. 

of 1505, from a visit to his family at Mansfeld, he 
was overtaken by a storm. The lightning struck 
the ground before his feet ; he fell from his horse. 
4 Holy Anne,' he cried to the mother of the Virgin, 
'help me; I will become a monk.' Isext day at 
Erfurt he repented of his vow, for he knew how it 
would grieve his father ; but his life had been 
spared ; he believed that the vow had been heard 
and registered in heaven ; and without waiting for 
his resolution to be shaken, he sought, and found ad- 
mittance in the Augustinian monastery in the town. 
His career hitherto had been so brilliant that the 
old Hans had formed the brightest hopes for him. 
He was bitterly disappointed, knowing, perhaps, 
more of monks and monkdom than his son. He 
consented with a sore heart, perhaps hoping that a 
year's experience and the discipline of the novitiate 
would cure a momentary folly. The Augustinians 
owned no property ; they lived on aims, and the 
young Martin, to break his pride, was set to the 
lowest drudgery in the house, and was sent about 
the town to beg. Luther, however, flung himself 
with enthusiasm into the severest penances. He 
fasted, he prayed, he lay on the stones, he distracted 
his spiritual adviser with the refinements of his con- 



LUTHER. 11 

fessions. The common austerities failing, he took 
to hair shirts and whips, and the brethren supposed 
that they had a growing saint among them. To 
himself these resources availed nothing. The tem- 
per which he hoped to drive out of himself clung 
to him in spite of all prescribed remedies. But 
still he persevered ; the novitiate ended, and he 
took the vows and became full monk and priest. 
His father attended the ceremony, though in no 
pleasant humour. < You learned men,' he said at 
the convent dinner, 'have you never read that a 
man should obey his father and mother ? ' They 
told him his son had received a call from Heaven. 
' Pray God,' the old man answered, ' it be not a 
trick of the devil. I must eat and drink with you, 
but I would gladly be gone.' 

Two years passed away. Luther occupied him- 
self with eagerly studying the Bible, but his read- 
ing would not pacify his restless conscientiousness. 
The Yicar-General of the Order, Father Staupitz, 
a wise open-minded man, saw him, heard his con^ 
fessions, and understood them. He perceived that 
his mind was preying upon itself, and that he re- 
quired to be taken out of himself by active em- 
ployment. 



12 LUTHEE. 

The Elector Frederick — Frederick the Wise, as 
distinguished from his brother and his nephew — had 
lately founded a university at Wittenberg, a con- 
siderable town on the Elbe. The Augustinians had 
an affiliated house in Wittenberg, and Staupitz 
transferred Luther thither, to teach theology and 
philosophy. 

Luther was now twenty-five, and there is a gap 
of two years in his history. He must have observed 
and thought much in these years, or the tinder 
would scarcely have been kindled by the sparks 
which fell upon it at the end of them. The air of 
Germany was growing thick with symptoms of 
storm. After long sleep men were beginning to 
think for themselves, and electric flashes were play- 
ing about — sheet lightning still, but strange and 
menacing. Religion as it professed to be, and re- 
ligion as it was embodied in the lives of Church 
dignitaries and priests and friars, were in startling 
contrast, and the silence with which the difference 
had been long observed was being broken by mali- 
cious mockeries in the ' Epistolas Obscurorum Yiro- 
rum.' 

In 1511, business of the Augustinian Order re- 
quiring that two of the brethren from the Elector- 



LUTHER. 13 

ate should be sent to Rome, Luther was chosen, with 
another monk, for the commission. There were no 
carriages in those days, or at least none for humble 
monks. He walked, and was six weeks upon the 
journey, being fed and lodged at religious houses 
upon the way. He went full of hope that in Rome 
at least, in the heart of Christendom, and under the 
eye of the vicegerent of Christ, he would find the 
living faith, which far off had grown cold and mil- 
dewed. When he came in sight of the sacred city, 
consecrated as it had been by the blood of saints and 
martyrs, he flung himself on his knees in a burst of 
emotion. His emotion made him exaggerate his dis- 
appointment. He found a splendid city, a splendid 
Court, good outward order, and careful political ad- 
ministration. He found art on its highest pinnacle 
of glory. But it was Pagan Rome, not Christian. 
The talk of society was of Alexander the Sixth and 
the Borgian infamies. Julius, the reigning Pontiff, 
was just returning from the Yenetian wars, where he 
had led a storming party in person into the breach 
of a besieged city. The morals of the Cardinals 
were a public jest. Luther himself heard an offici- 
ating priest at the altar say scornfully, ' Bread thou 
art, and bread thou remain est.' The very name 



14 LUTHER. 

£ Christian ' was a synonym of a fool. He was 
perhaps an imperfect judge of what he observed, 
and he remained in the city only a month. But 
the impression left upon him was indelible. 'I 
would not,' he said afterwards, ' for a hundred thou- 
sand gulden have missed the sight of Rome. I might 
have thought else, that I did the Pope injustice.' 

He returned to Wittenberg convinced probably 
that Popes and Cardinals w T ere no indispensable 
parts of the Church of Christ, but still with nothing 
of the spirit of a rebel in him, and he flung himself 
into his work with enthusiasm. His sermons be- 
came famous. He preached with an energy of con- 
viction upon sin and atonement ; on human worth- 
lessness, and the mercy and grace of the Almighty ; 
his impassioned w T ords drawn fresh, through his 
own heart, from the Epistles of St. Paul. His 
look, his manner, his i demonic eyes,' brilliant black 
with a yellow rim round the iris like a lion's, were 
startling and impressive. People said ' this monk 
had strange ideas.' The Elector heard him once 
and took notice. The Elector's chaplain and secre- 
tary, Spalatin, became his intimate friend. 

The incidents of his life are all related with clear 
brevity by Herr Kostlin. In this article I must 



LUTIIEE. 15 

confine myself to the critical epochs. From 1512 
to 1517 he remained busy at Wittenberg, little 
dreaming that he was to be the leader of a spiritual 
revolution. It was enough for him if he could walk 
uprightly along the line of his own private duty. 
The impulse with him, as with all great men, came 
from without. 

Pope Julius was gone. Leo the Tenth succeeded 
him ; and the cultivated Pontiff desired to signal- 
ise his reign by building the grandest church in 
the world. Money was needed, and he opened his 
spiritual treasury. Pie had no belief himself in the 
specific value of his treasures ; but others had, and 
were willing to pay for them. ' Christianity,' he 
observed, 'was a profitable fable.' His subjects 
throughout the world were daily committing sins 
which involved penance before they could be par- 
doned. Penances in this life were rarely adequate, 
and had to be compensated by indefinite ages of 
purgatory. Purgatory was an unpleasant prospect. 
The Pope had at his disposal the. superfluous 
merits of extraordinary saints, which could be ap- 
plied to the payment of the average sinners' debts, 
if the average sinners chose to purchase them ; and 
commissioners were appointed for a general sale of 






16 LIJTHEK. 

Indulgences (as they were called) throughout Catho- 
lic Europe. The commissioner for Germany was 
Albert, Archbishop of Mayence, Cardinal and 
Prince of the Empire, a youth of twenty-seven, a 
patron of the fine arts like his Holiness — loose, luxu- 
rious, and sensual — a rather worse specimen than 
usual of the average great Churchmen of the age. 
Kostlin gives a picture of him, a thick-lipped heavy 
face, with dull eyes, a long drooping nose, and the 
corners of the mouth turned contemptuously up. 
The Pope had made him pay lavishly for the pal- 
lium when he was admitted to the archbishopric. 
He had borrowed 30,000 gulden from the Fuggers 
at Augsburg, the Rothschilds of the sixteenth cen- 
tury. Leo in return had granted him the contract 
for the Indulgences on favourable terms. The 
Cardinal was to collect the monej' ; half of it was 
to be remitted to Rome ; half was to go to the repay- 
ment of the loan. 

It was a business transaction, conducted with the 
most innocent frankness. Cardinal Albert could 
not wholly be relied upon. An agent of the Fug- 
gers accompanied each of the sub-commissioners, 
who carried round the wares, to receive their share 
of the profit. 



LUTHER. 17 

A Dominican monk named Tetzel was appointed 
to collect in Saxony, and he was as accomplished as 
a modern auctioneer. He entered the towns in pro- 
cession, companies of priests bearing candles and 
banners, choristers chanting and ringing bells. At 
the churches a red cross was set upon the altars, a 
silk banner floating from it with the Papal arms, 
and a great iron dish at the foot to receive the 
equivalents for the myriads of years of the penal 
fire of Tartarus. Eloquent preachers invited all of- 
fenders, the worst especially, robbers, murderers, 
and adulterers, to avail themselves of the opportu- 
nity : insisted on the efficacy of the remedy ; and 
threatened with excommunication any wretch who 
dared to question it. 

In a world where printed books were beginning 
to circulate, in a generation which had been reading 
Erasmus and the ' Epistolge Obscurorum Virorum,' 
this proceeding was a high flight of insolence. 
Superstition had ceased to be a delusion, and had 
passed into conscious hypocrisy. The Elector Fred- 
erick remonstrated. Among the laity there was 
a general murmur of scorn or anger ; Luther wrote 
privately to several bishops to entreat their inter- 
ference ; but none would move, and Tetzel was 



18 LUTHEE. 

coming near to Wittenberg. Luther determined to 
force the question before public opinion. It was 
common in universities, when there were points un- 
settled in morals or theology, for any member who 
pleased to set up propositions for open disputation, 
to propound an opinion, and offer to maintain it 
against all comers. The challenger did not commit 
himself to the adoption of the opinion in his own 
person. lie undertook to defend it in argument, 
that the opposite side might be heard. Availing 
himself of the ordinary practice, on October 31, 
1517, the most memorable day in modern European 
history, Luther, being then thirty-four years old, 
fixed ninety-five theses on the door of Wittenberg 
church, calling in question the Papal theory of In- 
dulgences, and the Pope's right to sell them. In 
itself there was nothing unusual in such a step. 
Iso council of the Church had defined or ratified the 
doctrine of Indulgences. The subject was matter 
of general conversation, and if the sale of Indul- 
gences could be defended, an opportunity was made 
for setting uneasy minds at rest. The question, 
however, was one which could not be set at rest. 
In a fortnight the theses were flying everywhere, 
translated into vernacular German. Tetzel con- 



LUTHER. 19 

descended only to answer that the Pope was in- 
fallible. John Eck, a professor at Ingolstadt, to 
whom Luther had sent a copy in expectation of 
sympathy, thundered against him as a Hussite and 
a heretic. Louder and louder the controversy 
raged. The witches' caldron had boiled, and the 
foul lees of popular superstition and priestly abuses 
came rushing to the surface. Luther himself was 
frightened at the storm which he had raised. He 
wrote humbly to Pope Leo, trusting his cause in his 
hands. Leo was at first amused : ' Brother Martin,' 
he said, ' has a fair wit ; it is only a quarrel of en- 
vious monks.' When the theses were in his hands, 
and he saw that the matter was serious, he said 
more impatiently : ' A drunken German has written 
them — when he is sober he will be of another 
mind.' But the agitation only grew the wilder. 
Almost a year passed, and Leo found that he must 
despatch a Legate (Cardinal Caietanus) into Ger- 
many to quiet matters. Along with him he sent 
an anxious letter to the Emperor Maximilian, with 
another to the Elector requiring him to deliver 
' the child of iniquity ' into the Legate's hands, and 
threatening an interdict if he was disobeyed. A 
Diet of the Empire was summoned to meet at 



20 LUTHEE. 

Augsburg, in August, 1518. Caietanns was pres- 
ent, and Luther was required to attend. 

The Elector Frederick was a prudent experienced 
prince, who had no desire to quarrel with the See 
of Rome ; but he had seen into the infamy of the 
Indulgences, and did not mean to hand over one of 
his subjects to the summary process with which the 
Pope would have closed the controversy. The old 
Emperor Maximilian was a wise man too. He was 
German to the heart, and the Germans had no love 
for Italian supremacy. Pregnant sayings are re- 
ported by Luther of Maximilian : ' There are three 
kings in Europe,' he once observed, ' the Emperor, 
the King of France, and the King of England. I 
am a king of kings. If I give an order to the 
princes of the empire, they obey if they please ; if 
they do not please, they disobey. The King of 
France is a king of asses. He orders what he 
pleases, and they obey like asses. The King of 
England is king of a loyal nation. They obey him 
with heart and mind as faithful subjects.' 

A secretary had embezzled 3,000 gulden. Maxi- 
milian sent for him, and asked what should be done 
to a confidential servant who had robbed his master. 
The secretary recommended the gallows. 'Nay, 



LUTHER. 21 

nay,' the Emperor said, and tapped him on the 
shoulder, 'I cannot spare you yet.' 

Luther was told that he must appear. He looked 
for nothing but death, and he thought of the shame 
which he would bring upon his parents. He had 
to walk from Wittenberg, and he had no money. 
At Nuremberg he borrowed a coat of a friend that 
he might present himself in such high company 
with decency. He arrived at Augsburg on the 7th 
of October. The Legate w^ould have seized him at 
once ; but Maximilian had sent a safe-conduct for 
him, and Germany was not prepared to allow a sec- 
ond treachery like that which had sent Huss to the 
stake. The princes of the Diet were out of humour 
too, for Caietanus had been demanding money from 
them, and they had replied with a list of grievances 
— complaints of Annates, first fruits, and Provisions, 
familiar to the students of English Reformation 
history. The Legate saw that he must temporise 
with the troublesome monk. Luther was told that 
if he would retract he would be recommended to 
the Pope, and might look for high promotion. Ca- 
ietanus himself then sent for him. Had the Car- 
dinal been moderate, Luther said afterwards that 
he was prepared to yield in much. He was still 



22 LUTHER. 

young and diffident, and modest : and it was a great 
thing for a peasant's son to stand alone against 
the ruling powers. But the Legate was scornful, 
lie could not realise that this insignificant object 
before him was a spark of living fire, which might 
set the world blazing. He told Luther briefly that 
he must retract his theses. Luther said he could 
not without some answer to them. Caietan would 
not bear of argument. ' Think you,' he said, ' that 
the Pope cares for the opinions of Germany ? 
Think you that the princes will take up arms for 
you % Iso indeed. And where will you be then ? ' 
' Under Heaven,' Luther answered. He wrote to 
the Legate afterwards that perhaps he had been too 
violent. If the sale of Indulgences was stopped he 
promised to be silent. Caietan replied only with a 
scheme for laying hold on him in spite of his safe- 
conduct. Being warned of his danger, he escaped 
at night through a postern, and rode off with a 
guide, 'in a monk's gown and unbreeched,' home 
to Wittenberg. 

The Legate wrote fiercely to the Elector. Luther 
offered to leave Saxony and seek an asylum in 
Paris. But Frederick replied that the monk had 
done right in refusing to retract till the theses had 



LUTHER. 23 

been argued. He was uneasy ; he was no theolo- 
gian ; but he had a sound instinct that the Indul- 
gences were no better than scandalous robbery. 
Luther for the present should remain where he was. 
Luther did remain, and was not idle. He pub- 
lished an account of his interview with the Legate. 
He wrote a tract on the Papal supremacy and ap- 
pealed to a general council. The Pope found that 
he must still negotiate. He had for a chamberlain 
a Saxon noble, Karl von Miltitz, a born subject of 
the Elector. He sent Miltitz to Frederick with 
* the Golden Rose,' the highest compliment which 
the Court of Pome could pay, with the politest of 
letters. He had heard with surprise, he said, that 
a child of perdition was preaching heresy in his 
dominions. He had the utmost confidence that his 
beloved son and the magistrates of the electorate 
would put this offspring of Satan to silence. Mil- 
titz arrived in the middle of the winter 1518-19. 
He discovered, to his astonishment, that three- 
fourths of Germany was on Luther's side. So fast 
the flame had spread, that an army of 25,000 men 
would not be able to carry him off by jrorce. He 
sought an interview with Luther, at which Spala- 
tin, the Elector's chaplain, was present. He sobbed 



24 LUTHER. 

and implored ; kisses, tears — crocodile's tears — were 
tried in profusion. Luther was ready to submit his 
case to a synod of German bishops, and wrote again 
respectfully to the Pope declining to retract, but 
hoping that the Holy See would no longer persist 
in a course which was creating scandal through 
Germany. 

Perhaps if Maximilian had lived, the Pope 
would have seen his way to some concession, for 
Maximilian, it was certain, would never sanction 
violent courses; but, in January, 1519, Maximilian 
died, and Charles the Fifth succeeded him. Charles 
was then but twenty years old ; the Elector Freder- 
ick's influence had turned the scale in favour of 
Maximilian's grandson. There were hopes then 
that a young prince, coming fresh to the throne in 
the bitter throes of a new era, might set himself 
at the head of a national German reformation, and 
regrets since have been wasted on the disappoint- 
ment. Regrets for 'what might have been' are 
proverbially idle. Great movements which are un- 
resisted now violently on, and waste themselves in 
extravagance and destruction; and revolutions which 
are to mark a step in the advance of mankind need 
always the discipline of opposition, till the baser 



LUTHEII. 25 

parts are beaten out of them. Like the two horses 
which in Plato's fable draw the chariot of the soul 
through the vaults of heaven, two principles work 
side by side in evolving the progress of humanity — 
the principle of liberty and the principle of author- 
ity. Liberty unchecked rushes into anarchy and 
licence ; authority, if it has no antagonism to fear, 
stagnates into torpor, or degenerates into tyranny. 
Luther represented the new life which was be- 
ginning ; Charles the Fifth represented the institu- 
tions of 1500 years, which, if corrupt in some parts 
of Europe, in others had not lost their old vitality, 
and were bearing fruit still in brave and noble 
forms of human nature. Charles was Emperor of 
the Germany of Luther, but he was also the King 
of the Spain of Saint Ignatius. The Spaniards 
were as earnestly and piously Catholic, as the Ger- 
mans were about to become Evangelical. Charles 
was in his religion Spanish. Simple, brave, devout, 
unaffected, and wise beyond his years, he believed 
in the faith which he had inherited. Some minds 
are so constructed as to fly eagerly after new ideas, 
and the latest born appears the truest ; other minds 
look on speculative novelties as the ephemeral 
productions of vanity or restlessness, and hold to 



26 LUTHER. 

the creeds which have been tested by experience, 
and to the profession in which their fathers have 
lived and died. Both of these modes of thought 
are good and honourable in themselves, both are 
essential to the development of truth ; yet they 
rarely coexist in any single person. By nature and 
instinct Charles the Fifth belonged to the side of 
authority ; and interest, and indeed necessity, com- 
bined to hold him to it. In Germany he was king 
of kings, but of kings over whom, unless he was 
supported by the Diet, his authority was a shadow. 
In Spain he was absolute sovereign ; and if he had 
gone with the Reformers against the Pope, he 
would have lost the hearts of his hereditary sub- 
jects. Luther was not to find a friend in Charles ; 
but he was to find a noble enemy, whose lofty qual- 
ities he always honoured and admired. 

After the failure of Miltitz, the princes of the 
empire had to decide upon their course. In the 
summer of 1519 there was an intellectual tourna- 
ment at Leipzig before Duke George of Saxony. 
Luther was the champion on one aide, John Eck, 
of Ingolstadt, on the other. We have a description 
of Luther by a friend who saw him on this occa- 
sion : he was of middle height, so lean from study 



LUTHER. 27 

and anxiety that his bones could be counted. He 
had vast knowledge, command of Scripture, fair ac- 
quaintance with Greek and Hebrew ; his manner 
was good ; his speech pregnant with matter ; in 
society he was lively, pleasant, and amusing. On 
his feet he stood remarkably firm, body bent rather 
back than forward, the face thrown up, and the eyes 
flashing like a lion's. 

Eck was less favourably drawn : with a face like 
a butcher's, and a voice like a town crier's ; a hesi- 
tation in speech which provoked a play upon his 
name, as being like the eck, eck, eck of a jackdaw. 
Eck called Luther a disciple of John Huss ; and 
Luther defended Huss. Luther had appealed to 
a general council. Eck reminded him that the 
Council of Constance had condemned Huss, and 
so forced him to say that councils might make mis- 
takes. Papal supremacy was next fought over. 
Did Christ found it ? Could it be proved from the 
New Testament ? Duke George thought Eck had 
the best of the encounter. Leipzig Catholic gossip 
had a story that Luther's mother had confessed that 
Martin's father had been the devil. But Luther 
remained the favourite of Germany. His tracts 
circulated in hundreds of thousands. Ulrich von 



28 LUTHER. 

Hutten and Franz von Sickingen offered Mm an 
asylum if he had to leave the electorate. He pub- 
lished an address to the German nation denouncing 
the Papacy as a usurpation, which rang like the 
blast of a trumpet. He sent a copy to the Elector, 
who replied with a basket of game. 

Eck, meanwhile, who thought the victory had 
been his, was despatched by Duke George to Rome, 
to urge the Pope to action. Charles had signified 
his own intended attitude by ordering Luther's writ- 
ings to be burnt in the Low Countries. Pope Leo 
thus encouraged, on the 16th of June, 1520, issued 
his famous Bull, against ' the wild boar who had 
broken into the Lord's vineyard.' Forty-one of 
Luther's propositions were selected and specially 
condemned ; and Eck was sent back with it to Ger- 
many, with orders, if the wild boar was still impen- 
itent, to call in the secular arm. Erasmus, who 
had been watching the storm from a distance, ill 
contented, but not without clear knowledge where 
the right lay, sent word that no good was to be 
looked for from the young Emperor. Luther, who 
had made up his mind to death as the immediate 
outlook for him, was perfectly fearless. The Pope 
could but kill his body, and he cared only for his 



LUTHER. 29 

soul and for the truth. The Pope had now con- 
demned formally what Luther conceived to be 
written in the plainest words in Scripture. The 
Papal chair, therefore, was ' Satan's seat,' and the 
occupant of it was plainly Antichrist. At the 
Elector's request he wrote to Leo once more, but he 
told him, in not conciliatory language, that the See 
of Pome was worse than Sodom and Gomorrah. 
When Eck arrived in December, on his commission, 
Luther ventured the last step, from which there 
could be no retreat. The Pope had condemned 
Luther's writings to the fire. On the 10th of De- 
cember, Luther solemnly burnt at Wittenberg a 
copy of the Papal Decretals. ' Because,' he said, 
'thou hast troubled the Lord's saints, let eternal 
fire consume thee.' The students of the university 
sang the Te Deum round the pile, and completed 
the sacrifice by flinging into the flames the Bull 
which had been brought by Eck. Luther trembled, 
he said, before the daring deed was accomplished, 
but when it was done he was better pleased than 
with any act of his life. A storm had now burst, 
he said, which would not end till the day of judg- 
ment. 

The prophecy was true in a sense deeper than 



30 LUTHER. 

Luther intended. The intellectual conflict which is 
still raging is the yet uncompleted outcome of that 
defiance of established authority. Far and wide 
the news flew. Pamphlets, poems, satires, show- 
ered from the printing-presses. As in the dawn 
of Christianity, house was set against house, and 
fathers against their sons and daughters. At 
Rome the frightened courtiers told each other that 
the monk of Wittenberg was coming with 70,000 
barbarians to sack the Holy City, like another 
Attila. 

The Pope replied by excommunicating Luther 
and all his adherents, and laying the country which 
harboured him under the threatened interdict. 
The Elector gave no sign ; all eyes were looking to 
the young Emperor. An Imperial Diet was called, 
to meet at Worms in 1521, at which Charles was to 
be present in person, and there Luther was to come 
and answer for himself. The Elector remembered 
the fate of John Hnss at Constance. Charles might 
undertake for Luther's safety ; but a safe-conduct 
had not saved Huss, and Popes could dispense with 
promises. Luther himself had little hope, but also 
no fear. ' I will go,' he said, ' if I am to be carried 
sick in mv bed. I am called of the Lord when the 



LUTHER. 31 

Kaiser calls me. I trust only that the Emperor of 
Germany will not begin his reign with shedding in- 
nocent blood. I would rather be murdered by the 
Romans.' 

The Diet met on the 21st of January. The 
princes assembled. The young Emperor came for 
the first time face to face with them, with a fixed 
purpose to support the insulted majesty of the spir- 
itual sovereign of Christendom. His first demand 
was that Luther should be arrested at Wittenberg, 
and that his patrons should be declared traitors. 
Seven days followed of sharp debate. The Elector 
Frederick dared to say that ' he found nothing in 
the Creed about the Roman Church, but only the 
Catholic Christian Church.' 'This monk makes 
work,' said another ; ' some of us would crucify 
him,- and I think he will hardly escape ; but what 
if he rises again the third day ? ' The princes of 
the empire naturally enough did not like rebels 
against lawful authority ; but the Elector was reso- 
lute, and it was decided that Luther should not be 
condemned without a hearing. The Pope as such 
had few friends among them — even Duke George 
himself insisted that many things needed mending. 

flvaspar Sturm, the Imperial herald, was sent to 



32 LUTHER. 

Wittenberg to command Luther's attendance, under 
pain of being declared a heretic. The Emperor 
granted a safe-conduct, and twenty-one days were 
allowed. On the 2nd of April, the Tuesday after 
Easter, Luther set out on his momentous journey. 
He travelled in a cart with three of his friends, the 
herald riding in front in his coat of arms. If he 
had been anxious about his fate he w r ould have 
avoided displaj^s upon the road, which would be 
construed into defiance. But Luther let things 
take their chance, as if it had been a mere ordinary 
occasion. The Emperor had not waited for his ap- 
pearance to order his books to be burnt. When he 
reached Erfurt on the way, the sentence had just 
been proclaimed. The herald asked him if he still 
meant to go on. c I will go,' he said, ' if there are 
as many devils in Worms as there are tiles upon the 
house-tops. Though they burnt Huss, they could 
not burn the truth.' The Erf art students, in retal- 
iation, had thrown the Bull into the water. The 
Rector and the heads of the university gave Luther 
a formal reception as an old and honoured member ; 
he preached at his old convent, and he preached 
again at Gotha and at Eisenach. Caietan had pro- 
tested against the appearance in the Diet of an ex- 



LUTHER. 33 

communicated heretic. The Pope himself had de- 
sired that the safe-conduct should not be respected, 
and the bishops had said that it was unnecessary. 
Manoeuvres were used to delay him on the road till 
the time allowed had expired. But there was a 
fierce sense of fairness in the lay members of the 
Diet, which it was dangerous to outrage. Franz 
von Sick in gen hinted that if there was foul play it 
might go hard with Cardinal Caietan — and Yon 
Sickingen was a man of his word in such matters. 
On the 16th of April, at ten in the morning, the 
cart entered Worms, bringing Luther in his monk's 
dress, followed and attended by a crowd of cava- 
liers. The town's people were all out to see the 
person with whose name Germany was ringing. 
As the cart passed through the gates the warder on 
the walls blew a blast upon his trumpet, The Elec- 
tor had provided a residence. As he alighted, one 
who bore him no good will noted the ' demonic 
eyes' with which he glanced, about him. 'That 
evening a few nobles called to see him who had 
been loud in their complaints of Churchmen's exac- 
tions at the Diet. Of the princes, one only came, 
an ardent noble-minded youth, of small influence as 

yet, but of high-spirited purpose, Philip, Landgrave 
3 



34 LUTHER. 

of Hesse. Instinct, more than knowledge, drew 
him to Luther's side. ' Dear Doctor,' he said, ' if 
you are right, the Lord God stand by you.' 

Luther needed God to stand by him, for in all 
that great gathering he could count on few assured 
friends. The princes of the empire were resolved 
that he should have fair play, but they were little 
inclined to favour further a disturber of the public 
peace. The Diet sate in the Bishop's palace, and 
the next evening Luther appeared. The presence 
in which he found himself would have tried the 
nerves of the bravest of men : the Emperor, stern- 
ly hostile, with his retinue of Spanish priests and 
nobles ; the archbishops and bishops, all of opinion 
that the stake was the only fitting place for so inso- 
lent a heretic ; the dukes and barons, whose stern 
eyes were little likely to reveal their sympathy, if 
sympathy any of them felt. One of them only, 
George of Frundsberg, had touched Luther on the 
shoulder as he passed through the ante-room. 
6 Little monk, little monk,' he said, ' thou hast work 
before thee, that I, and many a man whose trade is 
war, never faced the like of. If thy heart is right, 
and thy cause good, go on in God's name. He will 
not forsake thee.' 



LUTHER. 35 

A pile of books stood on a table when lie was 
brought forward. An officer of the court read the 
titles, asked if he acknowledged them, and whether 
he was ready to retract them. 

Luther was nervous, not without cause. He 
answered in a low voice that the books were his. 
To the other question he could not reply at once. 
He demanded time. His first appearance had not 
left a favourable impression ; he was allowed a 
night to consider. 

The next morning, April 18, he had recovered 
himself ; he came in fresh, courageous, and col- 
lected. His old enemy, Eck, was this time the 
spokesman against him, and asked what he was 
prepared to do. 

He said firmly that his writings were of three 
kinds : some on simple gospel truth, which all ad- 
mitted, and which of course he could not retract ; 
some against Papal laws and customs, which had 
tried the consciences of Christians and had been 
used as excuses to oppress and spoil the German 
people. If he retracted these he would cover 
himself with shame. In a third sort he had at- 
tacked particular persons, and perhaps had been 
too violent. Even here he declined to retract 



36 LUTHER. 

simply, but would admit his fault if fault could be 
proved. 

He gave his answers in a clear strong voice, in 
Latin first, and then in German. There was a 
pause, and then Eck said that he had spoken disre- 
spectfully ; his heresies had been already con- 
demned at the Council at Constance ; let him re- 
tract on these special points, and he should have 
consideration for the rest. He required a plain 
Yes or No from him, ' without horns.' The taunt 
roused Luther's blood. His full brave self was in 
his reply. 'I will give you an answer,' lie said, 
4 which has neither horns nor teeth. Popes have 
erred and councils have erred. Prove to me out of 
Scripture that I am wrong, and I submit. Till then 
my conscience binds me. Here I stand. I can do 
no more. God help me. Amen.' 

All day long the storm raged. Xight had fallen, 
and torches were lighted in the hall before the sit- 
ting closed. Luther was dismissed at last ; it was 
supposed, and perhaps intended, that he was to be 
taken to a dungeon. -But the hearts of the lay 
members of the Diet had been touched by the cour- 
age which he had shown. They would not permit 
a hand to be laid on him. Duke Eric of Bruns- 



LUTHEE. 37 

wick handed to him a tankard of beer which he 
had himself half drained. When he had reached 
his lodging again, he flung up his hands. 'I am 
through ! ' he cried, ' I am through ! If I had a 
thousand heads, they should be struck off one by 
one before I would retract.' The same evening 
the Elector Frederick sent for him, and told him 
he had done well and bravely. 

But though he had escaped so far, he was not ac- 
quitted. Charles conceived that he could be now 
dealt with as an obstinate heretic. At the next 
session (the day following), he informed the Diet 
that he would send Luther home to "Wittenberg, 
there to be punished as the Church required. The 
utmost that his friends could obtain was that fur- 
ther efforts should be made. The Archbishop of 
Treves was allowed to tell him that if he would ac- 
knowledge the infallibility of councils, he might be 
permitted to doubt the infallibility of the Pope. 
But Luther stood simply upon Scripture. There, 
and there only, was infallibility. The Elector 
ordered him home at once, till the Diet should de- 
cide upon his fate ; and he was directed to be silent 
on the way, with significant reference to his Erfurt 
sermon. A majority in the Diet, it was now clear, 



38 LUTHER. 

would pronounce for his death. If he was sen- 
tenced by the Great Council of the Empire, the 
Elector would be no longer able openly to protect 
him. It was decided that he should disappear, and 
disappear so completely that no trace of him should 
be discernible. On his way back through the 
Thuringian Forest, three or four miles from Alten- 
stein, a party of armed men started out of the 
wood, set upon his carriage, seized and carried him 
off to Wartburg Castle. There he remained, pass- 
ing by the name of the Ritter George, and supposed 
to be some captive knight. The secret was so well 
kept, that even the Elector's brother was ignorant 
of his hiding-place. Luther was as completely lost 
as if the earth had swallowed him. Some said that 
he was with Yon Sickingen ; others that he had 
been murdered. Authentic tidings of him there 
were none. On the 8th of May the Edict of 
Worms was issued, placing him under the ban of 
the empire ; but he had become ' as the air invul- 
nerable,' and the face of the world had changed be- 
fore he came back to it. 

The appearance of Luther before the Diet on 
this occasion is one of the finest, perhaps it is the 
very finest, scene in human history. Many a man 



LUTHER. 39 

has encountered death bravely for a cause which 
he knows to be just, when he is sustained by the 
sympathy of thousands, of whom he is at the mo- 
ment the champion and the representative. But it 
is one thing to suffer and another to encounter face 
to face and single-handed the array of spiritual 
and temporal authorities which are ruling supreme. 
Luther's very cause was yet unshaped and undeter- 
mined, and the minds of those who had admired 
and followed him were hanging in suspense for the 
issue of his trial. High placed men of noble birth 
are sustained by pride of blood and ancestry, and 
the sense that they are the equals of those whom 
they defy. At "Worms there was on one side a sol- 
itary low-born peasant monk, and on the other the 
Legate of the dreaded power which had broken 
the spirit of Kings and Emperors — sustained and 
personally supported by the Imperial Majesty it- 
self and the assembled princes of Germany before 
whom the poor peasantry had been taught to trem- 
ble as beings of another nature from themselves. 
Well might George of Frundsberg say that no 
knight among them all had ever faced a peril which 
could equal this. 

The victory was w r on. The wavering hearts took 



40 LUTHER. 

courage. The Evangelical revolt spread like an 
epidemic. The Papacy was like an idol, powerful 
only as long as it was feared. Luther had thrown 
his spear at it, and the enchantment was broken. 
The idol was but painted wood, which men and 
boys might now mock and jibe at. Never again 
had Charles another chance of crushing the Refor- 
mation. France fell out with him on one side, and 
for the rest of his life gave him but brief intervals 
of breathing time. The Turks hung over Austria 
like a thunder cloud, terrified Ferdinand in Yienna, 
and swarmed over the Mediterranean in their pirate 
galleys. Charles was an earnest Catholic ; but he 
was a statesman also, too wise to add to his difficul- 
ties by making war on heresy. "What some call 
Providence and others accident had so ordered 
Europe that the tree which Luther had planted was 
allowed to grow till it was too strongly rooted to be 
overthrown. 

Luther's abduction and residence at "Wartburg is 
the most picturesque incident in his life. He 
dropped his monk's gown, and was dressed like a 
gentleman ; he let his beard grow and wore a sword. 
In the castle he was treated as a distinguished 
guest. Within the walls he was free to go where 



LUTHER. 41 

lie liked. He rode in the forest with an attendant, 
and as the summer came on, walked about and gath- 
ered strawberries. In August there was a two days' 
hunt, at which, as Hitter George, he attended, and 
made his reflections on it. ' We caught a few hares 
and partridges,' he said, ' a worthy occupation for 
idle people.' In the 'nets and dogs' he saw the 
devil entangling or pursuing human souls. A 
hunted hare ran to his feet ; he sheltered it for a 
moment, but the hounds tore it in pieces. ' So,' he 
said, ' rages the Pope and Satan to destroy those 
whom I would save.' The devil, he believed, haunt- 
ed his own rooms. That he threw his ink-bottle at 
the devil is unauthentic ; but there were noises in 
his boxes and closets which, he never doubted, 
came from his great enemy. "When he heard the 
sounds, he made jokes at them, and they ceased. 
' The devil,' he said, ' will bear anything better that 
to be laughed at.' 

The revolution, deprived of its leader, ran wild 
meanwhile. An account of the scene at Worms, 
with Luther's speeches, and woodcut illustrations, 
was printed on broadsheets and circulated in hun- 
dreds of thousands of copies. The people were like 
schoolboys left without a master. Convents and 



42 LUTHER. 

monasteries dissolved by themselves; monks and 
nuns began to many ; there was nothing else for 
the nuns to do, turned, as they were, adrift with- 
out provision. The Mass in most of the churches 
in Saxony wps changed into a Communion. But 
without Luther it was all chaos, and no order could 
be taken. So great was the need of him, that in De- 
cember he went to Wittenberg in disguise ; but it 
was not yet safe for him to remain there. He had 
to retreat to his castle again, and in that compelled 
retreat he bestowed on Germany the greatest of all 
the gifts which he was able to offer. He began to 
translate the Bible into clear vernacular German. 
The Bible to him was the sole infallible authority, 
where every Christian for himself could find the 
truth and the road to salvation, if he faithfully and 
piously looked for it. He had probably commenced 
the work at the beginning of his stay at the castle. 
In the spring of 1522 the New Testament was com- 
pleted. In the middle of March the Emperor's 
hands now being fully occupied, the Elector sent 
him word that he need not conceal himself any 
longer ; and he returned finally to his home and his 
friends. 

The New Testament was printed in November of 



LUTHER. 43 

that year, and became at once a household book in 
Germany. The contrast visible to the simplest 
eyes between the tawdry splendid Papacy and 
Christ and the Apostles, settled for ever the de- 
termination of the German people to have done 
with the old idolatry. The Old Testament was 
taken in hand at once, and in two years half of it 
was roughly finished. Luther himself, confident 
now that a special Providence was with him, show- 
ered out controversial pamphlets, not caring any 
longer to measure his words. Adrian YL, Clement 
VIL, clamoured for the execution of the Edict of 
"Worms. The Emperor, from a distance, denounced 
the new Mahomet. But they spoke to deaf ears. 
The Diet answered only with lists of grievances, 
and a demand for a free Council, to be held in Ger- 
many itself. 

The Reformation had risen out of the people ; 
and it is the nature of popular movements, when 
the bonds of authority are once broken, to burst 
into anarchy. Luther no longer believed in an 
apostolically ordained priesthood ; but he retained 
a pious awe for the sacraments, which he regarded 
really aud truly as mysterious sources of grace. 
Zwingle in Switzerland, Carlstadt and others in 



44 LUTHER. 

Saxony, looked on the sacraments as remnants of 
idolatrous superstition. Carlstadt himself, ' Arch- 
deacon of Orlamund,' as he was called, had sprung 
before his age into notions of universal equality 
and brotherhood. Luther found him one day meta- 
morphosed into ' Neighbour Andrew,' on a dung- 
heap loading a cart. A more dangerous fanatic 
was Munzer, the parson of Allstadt, near Weimar. 
It was not the Church only which needed reform. 
The nobles had taken to luxury and amusement. 
Toil and tax lay heavy on their peasant tenants ; as 
the life in the castle had grown splendid, the life 
in the cabin had become hard and bitter. Luther 
had confined himself to spiritual matters, but the 
spiritual and the secular were too closely bound to- 
gether to be separated. The Allstadt parson, after 
much ' conversing with God ' discovered that he had 
a mission to establish the Kingdom of the Saints, 
where tyrants were to be killed, and all men were 
to live as brothers, and all property was to be in 
common. Property, like all else which man' may 
possess, is a trust which he holds, not for his own 
indulgence, but for the general good. This is a 
universal principle. ^Nature is satisfied with a very 
imperfect recognition of it ; but if there is no recog- 



LUTHER. 45 

nition, if the upper classes, as they are called, live 
only for pleasure, and only for themselves, the con- 
ditions are broken under which human beings can 
live together, and society rushes into chaos. The 
rising spread, 1524-25. The demands actually set 
forward fell short of the Anabaptist ideal, and were 
not in themselves unreasonable. The people re- 
quired to be allowed to choose their own pastors, an 
equitable adjustment of tithes, emancipation from 
serfdom, and lastly, liberty to kill game — a right 
for a poor man to feed his starving children with a 
stray hare or rabbit. Luther saw nothing in this 
petition which might not be wisely conceded. But 
Miinzer himself made concession impossible. He 
raised an ' Army of the Lord.' He marched 
through the country, burning castles and convents, 
towns and villages, and executing savage ven- 
geance on the persons of the c Lord's enemies.' It 
was the heaviest blow which Luther had received. 
His enemies could say, and say with a certain truth, 
' Here was the visible fruit of his own action.' He 
knew that he was partly responsible, and that with- 
out him these scenes would not have been. The 
Elector, unfortunately, was ill — mortally so. He 
died while the insurrection was still blazing. His 



46 LUTHEE. 

brother John succeeded, very like him in purpose 
and character, and proceeded instantly to deal with 
the emergency. Luther hurried up and down the 
country, preaching to the people, rebuking the 
tyrannous Counts and Barons, and urging the Prot- 
estant Princes to exert themselves to keep the 
peace. Philip of Hesse, the Duke of Brunswick, 
and Count Mansfelt collected a force. The peas- 
ants were defeated and scattered. Miinzer was 
taken and hanged, and the fire was extinguished. 
It was well for Luther that the troops which had 
been employed were exclusively Protestant. The 
Catholics said scornfully of him, ' He kindled the 
flame, and he washes his hands like Pilate.' Had 
the army raised to quell the peasants belonged to 
Ferdinand, the Edict of Worms would have been 
made a reality. 

The Landgrave and the new Elector, John, al- 
lowed no severe retaliation when armed resistance 
was over. Thej T set themselves to cure, as far as 
possible, the causes of discontent. They trusted, 
as Luther did, to the return of a better order of 
things from ' a revival of religion. 5 

The Peasant War had been the first scandal to 
the Reformation. The second, which created 



LUTHEE. 47 

scarcely less disturbance, was Luther's own im- 
mediate work. As a priest lie had taken a vow of 
celibacy. As a monk he had again bound, himself 
by a vow of chastity. 

In priesthood and monkery he had ceased to be- 
lieve. If the orders themselves were unreal, the 
vows to respect the rules of those orders might 
fairly be held, to be nugatory. Luther not only 
held that the clerg} r , as a rule, might be married, 
but he thought it far better that thev should be 
married ; and the poor men and women who were 
turned adrift on the breaking up of the religious 
houses he had. freely advised to marry without fear 
or scruple. But still around a vow a certain im- 
agined sanctity persisted in adhering ; and when he. 
was recommended to set an example to others who 
were hesitating, he considered, and his friend, Me- 
lanchthon, considered, that, in his position, and 
with so many indignant eyes turned upon him, he 
ought not to give occasion to the enemy. Once, in- 
deed, impatiently, he said that marry he would, to 
spite the devil. But he had scarcely a home to offer 
to any woman, and no leisure and no certainty of 
companionship. He was for some years after the 
Edict of Worms in constant expectation of being 



48 LUTHER. 

executed as a heretic. He still lived in the Augus- 
tinian convent at Wittenberg ; but the monks had 
gone, and there were no revenues. He had no in- 
come of his own ; one suit of clothes served him 
for two years ; the Elector at the end of them gave 
him a piece of cloth for another. The publishers 
made fortunes out of his writings, but he never 
received a florin for them. So ill-attended he was 
that for a whole year his bed was never made, and 
was mildewed with perspiration. ' I was tired out 
with each day's work,' he said, ' and lay down and 
knew no more.' 

But things were getting into order again in the 
Electorate. The parishes were provided with pas- 
tors, and the pastors with modest wages, f Luther 
was professor at the university, and the Elector al- 
lowed him a salary of 200 gulden a year. 1 Pres- 
ents came from other quarters, and he began to 
think that it was not well for him to be alone. In 
Wittenberg there was a certain Catherine von Bora, 
sixteen years younger than he, who had been a nun 
in a distant convent. Her family were noble, but 
p<5or ; they had provided for their daughter by 
placing her in the cloister when she was a child of 

1 Equal to about 30Z. of modern money. 



LUTHER. 49 

nine ; at sixteen she had taken the vows ; but she 
detested the life into which she had been forced, 
and when the movement began she had applied to 
her friends to take her out of it. The friends 
would do nothing ; but in April, 1523, she and nine 
others were released by the people. As they were 
starving, Luther collected money to provide for 
them, and Catherine von Bora, being then twenty- 
four years old, came to "Wittenberg to reside with 
the burgomaster, Philip Reichenbach. Luther did 
not at first like her ; she was not beautiful, and he 
thought that she was proud of her birth and blood ; 
but she was a simple, sensible, shrewd, active 
woman ; she, in the sense in which Luther was, 
might consider herself dedicated to God, and a fit 
wife for a religious reformer. Luther's own fajther 
was most anxious that he should marry, and in a 
short time they came to understand each other. 
So, on the 13th of June, 1525, a month after Miinzer 
had been stamped out at Frankenhausen, a little 
party was collected in the Wittenberg Cloister — 
Bugenhagen, the town pastor, Professor Jonas, Lu- 
cas Cranach'(the painter), with his wife, and Pro- 
fessor Apel, of Bamberg, who had himself married 
a nun; and in this presence Martin Luther and 



50 LUTHER. 

Catherine von Bora became man and wife. It was 
a nine days' wonder. Philip Melanchthon thought 
his friend was undone ; Luther himself was uneasy 
for a day or two. But the wonder passed off ; in 
the town there was hearty satisfaction and congra- 
tulation. The new Elector, John, was not dis- 
pleased. The conversion of Germany was not ar- 
rested. Prussia and Denmark broke with Pome 
and accepted Luther's Catechism. In 1526, at Tor- 
gau, the Elector John, the Landgrave, the Dukes 
of Brunswick, Liineberg, Anhalt, Mecklenburg, and 
Magdeburg, formed themselves into an Evangelical 
Confederacy. It was a measure of self-defence, 
for it had appeared for the moment as if the Em- 
peror might again be . free for a Papal crusade. 
The French had been defeated at Pavia ; Francis 
was a prisoner, and Christendom was at Charles's 
feet. But Francis was soon loose again. In the 
cross purposes of politics, France and the Pope 
became allies, and the Pope was the Emperor's 
enemy. Pome was stormed by a German-Spanish 
army ; and the Emperor, in spite of himself, was 
doing Luther s work in breaking the power of the 
great enemy. Then England came into the fray, 
with the divorce of Catherine and the assertion of 



LUTHER. 51 

spiritual independence ; and the Protesant States 
were left in peace till calmer times and the meeting 
of the promised Council. In the midst of the con- 
fusion, Luther was able to work calmly on, ordering 
the churches, appointing visitors, or crossing swords 
with Erasmus, who looked on Luther much as the 
Pope did — as a wild boar who had broken into the 
vineyard. Luther, however violent in his polemics, 
was leading meanwhile the quietest of lives. He 
had taken his garden in hand ; he had built a foun- 
tain ; planted fruit trees and roots and seeds. He 
had a little farm ; he bought threshing instruments, 
and learned to use the flail. If the worst came to 
the worst he found that he could support his family 
with his hands. 

Again, in 1530, it seemed as if the Emperor 
would find leisure to interfere. In the year before 
he had made a peace with the Pope and the French 
which, for the sake of Christendom and the faith, 
he hoped might be observed. The Turks had been 
under the walls of Yienna, but they had retreated 
with enormous loss, and seemed inclined at least to 
a truce. The Evangelicals began to consider seri- 
ously how far they might go in resistance should 
Charles attempt to coerce them into obedience. 



52 LUTHER. 

Luther, fiery as he was in the defence of the faith, 
refused to sanction civil war. A Christian must 
suffer all extremities rather than deny his God ; 
but he might not fight in the field against his law- 
ful sovereign. In worldly things the ruler was su- 
preme, and the Emperor was the ruler of Ger- 
many. The Emperor, he said, had been chosen by 
the Electors, and by their unanimous vote might be 
deposed ; but he would not encourage either the 
Landgrave or his own Elector to meet force by 
force in separate action. The question never rose 
in Luther's lifetime, but the escape was a near one. 
A Diet at Speyer, in 1526, had decided that each 
prince should rule his own dominions in his own 
way, pending the expected Council. Charles's con- 
science would not allow him to tolerate a Lutheran 
communion if he could prevent it ; but he, too, 
dreaded a war of religion, of which no one could 
foresee any issue save the ruin of Germany. He 
knew and respected Luther's moderation, and sum- 
moned the Diet to meet him again at Augsburg, in 
the spring of 1530, to discover, if possible, some 
terms of reconciliation. The religious order which 
had been established in Saxony was recognised 
even at Rome with agreeable surprise, and the Leg- 



LUTHER. 53 

ate who attended was said to be prepared with 
certain concessions. The Elector John intended to 
have taken Luther to the Diet with him, but at Co- 
burg a letter met him from the Emperor, intimat- 
ing that Luther, being under the ban of the empire, 
could not be admitted into his presence. (The Elec- 
tor went forward with Melanchthon and Jonas ; 
Luther stayed behind in Coburg Castle, to work at 
his translation of the Bible,) and to compare the 
rooks and jackdaws, when they woke in the morn- 
ing, to gatherings of learned Doctors wrangling 
over their sophistries. 

We have seen him hitherto as a spiritual athlete. 
We here catch a glimpse of him in a softer charac- 
ter. His eldest boy, Hans, had been born four 
years before. From Coburg he wrote him perhaps 
the prettiest letter ever addressed by a father to a 
child :— 

Grace and peace in Christ, my dear little boy. I am 
pleased to see that thon learnest thy lessons well, and pray- 
est well. Go on thns, my dear boy, and when I come home 
I will bring yon a fine ' fairing.' I know of a pretty gar- 
den, where are merry children that have gold frocks, and 
gather nice apples and plnms and cherries nnder the trees, 
and sing and dance, and ride on pretty horses with gold 



54 LUTHEE. 

bridles and silver saddles. I asked the man of the place 
whose the garden was, and who the children were. He 
said, ' These are the children who pray and learn and are 
good.' Then I answered, 'I also have a son, who is called 
Hans Luther. May he come to this garden and eat pears 
and apples and ride a little horse, and play with the 
others ? ' The man said, ' If he says his prayers, and 
learns, and is good, he may come ; and Lippns and Jost 
may come, ' and they shall have pipes and drums and lutes 
and fiddles, and they shall dance and shoot with little 
crossbows.' Then he showed me a smooth lawn in the 
garden laid out for dancing, and there the pipes and drums 
and crossbows hung. But it was still early and the chil- 
dren had not dined ; and I could not wait for the dance. 
So I said, ' Dear sir, I will go straight home and write all 
this to my little boy ; but he has an aunt, Lene, 2 that he 
must bring with him.' And the man answered, ' So it 
shall be; go and write as you say.' Therefore, dear little 
boy, learn and pray with a good heart, and tell Lippus and 
Jost to do the same, and then you will all come to the gar- 
den together. Almighty God guard you. Give my love 
to aunt Lene, and give her a kiss for me. — Your loving 
father, Maktin Luthee. 

The Emperor meanwhile arrived at Augsburg on 
the 15th of June. Melanchthon, who w T as eager 



1 Melanchthon's son, Philip, and Jonas's son Jodoous. 

2 Great-aunt, Magdalen. 



LUTHER. 55 

for peace, had prepared a Confession of Faith, soft- 
ening as far as possible the points of difference 
between the Evangelicals and the Catholics. It 
was laid before the Diet, and was received with 
more favour than Melanchthon looked for even by 
Charles himself. Melanchthon believed that spiri- 
tual agreement might be possible; Luther knew 
that it was impossible ; but he did think that a 
political agreement might be arrived at ; that the 
two creeds, which in so many essentials were the 
same, might be allowed to live side by side. 

' Do not let us fall out,' he wrote to Cardinal 
Albert. ' Do not let us ruin Germany. Let there 
be liberty of conscience, and let us save our father- 
land.' Melanchthon was frightened, and would 
have yielded much. Luther w r ould not yield an 
inch. When no progress was made, he advised his 
friends to leave the Diet and come away. * Threats 
do not kill,' he said. ' There will be no war.' 

Luther understood the signs of the times. With 
the Turks in Hungary, and Henry VIII. and Fran- 
cis in alliance, it was in vain that the Pope urged 
violent measures. The Evangelical Confession was 
not accepted, and the Emperor demanded submis- 
sion. The Landgrave replied that if this was to be 



56 LUTHER. 

the way, he would go home and take measures to 
defend himself. Charles, taking leave of the Elec- 
tor, said sadly he had expected better of him ; the 
Elector's eyes filled with tears; but he answered 
nothing. The end, however, was as Luther ex- 
pected. Ferdinand of Austria and the Duke of 
Bavaria agreed to prohibit the advance of the new 
doctrines in their own dominions. It was decided, 
on the other hand, among the Protestant princes, 
that the Emperor's authority was limited, that re- 
sistance to unconstitutional interference was not un- 
lawful, an opinion to which Luther himself unwill- 
ingly assented. The famous League of Schmalkald 
was formed for the general defence of spiritual lib- 
erty. Denmark held out a hand from a distance, 
and France and England courted an alliance, which 
would hold Charles in check at home. The Em- 
peror and even Ferdinand, who was the more big- 
oted of the two brothers, admitted the necessity to 
which they were compelled to yield. The united 
strength of Germany was barely sufficient to bear 
back the Turkish invasion, and the political peace 
which Luther anticipated was allowed to stand for 
an indefinite period. 

Luther was present at Schmalkald, where he 



LUTHER. 57 

preached to the assembled representatives. On the 
day of the sermon he became suddenly and danger- 
ously ill. His health had been for some time un- 
certain. He was subject to violent headaches and 
giddiness ; he was now prostrated by an attack of 
4 the stone,' so severe that he thought he was dying. 
He had finished his translation of the Bible. It 
was now printed : a complete possession which he 
was able to bequeath to his countrymen. He con- 
ceived that his work was done, and life for its own 
sake had long ceased to have much interest for him. 
c At his age,' he said, ' with strength failing, he felt 
so weary, that he had no will to protract his days 
any longer in such an accursed world.' At Schmal- 
kald the end seemed to have come. Such remedies 
as then were known for the disease under which he 
w r as suffering were tried. Luther hated doctors ; 
but he submitted to all their prescriptions. His 
body swelled, ' They made me drink water,' he 
said, ' as if I was a great ox.' Mechanical contriv- 
ances were employed, equally ineffectual, and he 
prepared to die. i I depart,' he cried to his Maker, 
'a foe of Thy foes, cursed and banned by Thy 
enemy, the Pope. May he, too, die under Thy 
ban, and we both stand at Thy judgment bar on 



58 LUTHER. 

that day.'' The Elector, the young John Frederick 
— the Elector John, his father, was by this time 
gone — stood by his bed, and promised to care for 
his wife and children. Melanchthon was weeping. 
Even at that supreme moment Luther could not re- 
sist his humour. ' Have we not received good at 
the hand of the Lord,' he said, ' and shall we not 
receive evil ? The Jews stoned Stephen ; my stone, 
the villain, is stoning me.' 

But he had some years of precious life yet wait- 
ing for him. He became restless, and insisted on 
being carried home. He took leave of his friends. 
' The Lord fill you with his blessing,' he said, ' and 
with hatred of the Pope.' The first day he reached 
Tambach. The movement of the cart tortured 
him ; but it effected for him what the doctors could 
not. He had been forbidden to touch wine. He 
drank a goblet notwithstanding. He was relieved, 
and recovered. 

\We need not specially concern ourselves with the 
events of the next few years. They were spent in 
correcting and giving final form to the translation 
of the Bible, in organising the churches, in corre- 
spondence with the princes, and in discussing the 
conditions of the long-talked-of Council, and of the 



LUTIIEE. 59 

terms on which the Evangelicals would consent to 
take part in it. The peace of Nuremberg seemed 
an admission that no further efforts wonld be made 
to crush the Reformation by violence, and Luther 
was left to a peaceful, industrious life in his quiet 
home at Wittenberg. A very beautiful home it 
was. If Luther's marriage was a scandal, it was a 
scandal that was singularly happy in its conse- 
quences. The house in which he lived, as has been 
already said, w T as the old cloister to which he had 
first been brought from Erfurt. It was a pleasant, 
roomy building on the banks of the Elbe, and close 
to the town wall. His wife and he when they mar- 
ried were both penniless, but his salary as professor 
was raised to 300 gulden, and some small payments 
in kind were added from the university. The Elec- 
tor sent him presents. Denmark, the Eree Towns, 
great men from all parts of Europe, paid honour to 
the Deliverer of Germany with offerings of plate 
or money. The money, even the plate, too, he 
gave away, for he was profusely generous ; and any 
fugitive nun or brother suffering for the faith 
never appealed in vain while Luther had a kreutzer. 
But in his later years his own modest wants were 
more than amply supplied. He bought a farm, 



60 LUTHER. 

with a house upon it, where his family lived after 
his death. Katie, as he called his wife, managed 
everything ; she attended to the farm, she kept 
many pigs, and doubtless poultry also. She had a 
fish pond. She brewed beer. She had a strong 
ruling, administering talent. She was as great in 
her way as her husband was in his. 

' Next to God's Word,' he said, ' the world has 
no more precious treasure than holy matrimony. 
God's best gift is a pious, cheerful, God-fearing, 
home-keeping wife, to whom you can trust your 
goods, and body, and life. There are couples who 
neither care for their families, nor love each other. 
People like these are not human beings. They 
make their homes a hell.' 

The household was considerable. Five children 
were born in all. Hans, the eldest, to whom the 
letter from Coburg was written, died early. Eliza- 
beth, the next daughter, died also very young. 
There were three others, Magdalen, Martin, and 
Paul. Magdalen von Bora, Katie's aunt, the 
'Lene' of the letter from Coburg, lived with the 
family. She had been a nun in the same convent 
with her niece. For her Luther had a most affec- 
tionate regard. When she was dying, he said to 



LUTHER. 61 

her, ' You will not die ; you will sleep away as in 
a cradle, and morning will dawn, and you will 
rise and live for ever.' 

Two nieces seem to have formed part of the es- 
tablishment, and two nephews also. There was a 
tutor for the boys, and a secretary. A certain num- 
ber of university students boarded in the house — 
lads perhaps of promise, in whom Luther had a 
special interest. To his children he was passionately 
devoted. lie had no sentimental weakness ; but 
the simple lightheadedness, the unquestioning con- 
fidence and trustfulness of children, was in itself 
peculiarly charming to him. Life when they came 
to maturity would bring its own sorrows with it. 
A few bright and happy years to look back upon 
would be something which could not afterwards be 
taken away. He refused boys and girls no kind of 
innocent enjoyment, and in all the anecdotes of his 
relations with them there is an exquisite tenderness 
and playfulness. His Katie he was not above 
teasing and occasionally mocking. She was a 
' Martha ' more than a ' Mary,' always busy, always 
managing and directing with an eye to business. 
He was very fond of her. He never seriously 
found fault with those worldly ways of hers, for 



62 LUTHEB. 

lie knew her sterling worth ; but he told her once 
he would give her fifty gulden if she would read 
the Bible through. He called her his Herr Katie, 
and his Gnadige Frau. The farm which he had 
bought for her was called Zulsdorf. One of his 
last letters is addressed to 'my heartily beloved 
housewife, Katherin Lady Luther, Lady Doctor, 
Lady Zulsdorf, Lady of the Pigmarket, or what- 
ever else she may be.' 

The religious education of his children he con- 
ducted himself. His daughter Magdalen was an 
unusually interesting girl. A picture of her re- 
mains, by Cranach, with large imaginative eyes. 
Luther saw in her the promise of a beautiful char- 
acter ; she died when she was fourteen, and he was 
almost heart-broken. When she was carried to her 
grave he said to the bearers : ' I have sent a saint 
to heaven : could mine be such a death as hers, I 
would die at this moment.' To his friend Jonas he 
wrote : — ' You will have heard that my dearest 
child is born again in the eternal kingdom of God. 
"We ought to be glad at her departure, for she is 
taken away from the world, the flesh, and the 
devil ; but so strong is natural love that we cannot 
bear it without anguish of heart, without the sense 



LUTHER. 63 

of death in ourselves. When I think of her words, 



her gestures, when she w r as with us and in her de- 
parting, even Christ's death cannot relieve my 
agony.' On her tomb he wrote these lines : — 

Hier schlaf Ich, Lenchen, Luther's Tochterlein, 
Buh' rnit all'n Heiligen in meine Bettlein. 
Die Ich in Sunden war geborn 
Hatt' ewig miissen seyn verlorn, 
Aber Ich leb nu und liabs gut 
Herr Christe erlost mit deinem Blut. 

Here do I Lena, Luther's daughter rest, 

Sleep in my little bed with all the Blest. 

In sin and trespass was I bom, 

For ever was I thus forlorn ; 1 

But yet I live, and all is good — 

Thou, Christ, redeem'st me with Thy blood. 

There is yet another side to Luther, and it is the 
most wonderful of all. "We have seen him as a 
theologian ; we have seen him standing up alone, 
before principalities and powers, to protest against 
spiritual lies ; we have seen him at home in the 
quiet circle of his household. But there is nothing 
in any of this to show that his thoughts had trav- 

1 Verloren. — The word has travelled away from its original 
meaning. 



64 LUTIIEK. 

elled beyond the limits of a special set of subjects. 
But Luther's mind was literally world-wide ; his 
eyes were for ever observant of what was round 
him. At a time when science was scarcely out of 
its shell, Luther had observed Nature with the live- 
liest curiosity. He had anticipated by mere genius 
the generative functions of flowers. Human nature 
he had studied like a dramatist. His memory was 
a museum of historical information, of anecdotes of 
great men, of old German literature and songs and 
proverbs. Scarce a subject could be spoken of on 
which he had not thought, and on which he had 
not something remarkable to say. His table was 
always open, and amply furnished. Melanchthon, 
Jonas, Lucas Cranach, and other Wittenberg 
friends, were constant guests. Great people, great 
lords, great ladies, great learned men, came from 
all parts of Europe. He received them freely at 
dinner ? and being one of the most copious of 
talkers, he enabled his friends to preserve the most 
extraordinary monument of his acquirements and 
of his intellectual vigour. On reading the Tischre- 
den or Table-talk of Luther, one ceases to wonder 
how this single man could change the face of 
Europe. 



LUTHER. 65 

Where the language is itself beautiful, it neces- 
sarily loses in translation ; I will endeavour, how- 
ever, to convey some notion of Luther's mind as it 
appears in these conversations. 

First, for his thoughts about Nature. 

A tree in his garden was covered with ripe fruit. 
" Ah,' he said, ' if Adam had not fallen, we should 
have seen the beauty of these things — every bush 
and shrub would have seemed more lovely than if 
it was made of gold and silver. It is really more 
lovely ; but since Adam's fall men see nothing, and 
are stupider that beasts. God's power and wisdom 
are shown in the smallest flowers. Painters cannot 
rival their colour, nor perfumers their sweetness ; 
green and yellow, crimson blue, and purple, all 
growing out of the earth. And we do not know 
how to use them to God's honour. "We only mis- 
use them ; and we trample on lilies as if we were 
so many cows.' 

Katie had provided some fish out of her pond. 
Luther spoke of the breeding of fish, and what an 
extraordinary thing it was ; he then turned to the 
breeding of other creatures. £ Look at a pair of 
birds,' he said. ' They build a neat little nest, and 
drop their eggs in it, and sit on them. Then come 



y- 



66 LUTHEE. 

the chicks. There is the creature rolled up inside 
the shell. If we had never seen such a thing be- 
fore, and an egg was brought from Calicut, we 
should be all wondering and crying out. Philoso- 
phers cannot explain how the chick is made. God 
spake, and it was done : He commanded, and so it 
was. But he acts in all His works rather comically. 
If He had consulted me, I should have advised 
Him to make His men out of lumps of clay, and 
to have set the sun like a lamp, on the earth's sur- 
face, that it might be always day.' 

Looking at a rose, he said, ' Could a man make a 
single rose, we should give him an empire ; but 
these beautiful gifts of God come freely to us, and 
we think nothing of them. We admire what is 
worthless, if it be only rare. The most precious of 
things is nothing if it be common.' In the spring, 
when the buds were swelling and the flowers open- 
ing, he exclaimed : l Praise be to God the Creator, 
that now in this time of Lent out of dead wood 
makes all alive again. Look at that bough, as if 
it was with child and full of young things coming 
to the birth. It is a figure of our faith — winter is 
death, summer is the resurrection.' 

He was sitting one night late out of doors. A 



LUTHEE. 67 

bird flew into a tree to roost. ' That bird,' he said, 
' has had its supper, and will now sleep safe as the 
bough, and leave God to care for him. If Adam's 
fall had not spoilt us, we should have had no care 
either. We should have lived without pain, in 
possession of all kinds of knowledge, and have 
passed from time into eternity without feeling 
of death.' The old question was asked why God 
made man at all if He knew that he would fall ? 
Luther answered, that a great Lord must have ves- 
sels of dishonour in his house as well as vessels of 
honour. There were fellows who thought when 
they had heard a sermon or two, that they knew 
everything, and had swallowed the Holy Ghost 
feathers and all. Such wretches had no right to 
criticize the actions of God. Man could not meas- 
ure structures of God's building : he saw only the 
scaffolding. In the next life he would see it all ; 
and then happy those who had resisted temptation. 
Little Martin had been busy dressing a doll. 

In Paradise (Luther said) we shall be as simple as this 
child who talks of God and has no doubts to trouble him. 
Natural merriment is the best food for children — and they 
are themselves the best of playthings. They speak and 
act from the heart. They believe in God without disput- 



68 LUTHER. 

ing, and in another life beyond the present. They have 
small intellect, but they have faith, and are wiser than old 
fools like us. They think of heaven as a place where 
there will be eating and dancing, and rivers running with 
milk. Happy they ! for they have no earthly cares, or 
fears of death or hell. They have only pure thoughts and 
bright dreams. Abraham must have had a bad time when 
he was told to kill Isaac. If God had given me such an 
order, I should have disputed the point with him. 

6 1 never will believe,' said the downright Katie, 
& that God ordered any man to kill his child. 5 

Luther answered : l God had nothing dearer to 
Him than His own Son. Yet He gave Him to be 
hanged on the cross. In man's judgment He was 
more like a father to Caiaphas and Pilate than He 
was to Christ.' 

The religious houses were falling all round Ger- 
man} 7 . Bishops losing their functions were losing 
their lands ; and the nobles and burghers who had 
professed the Gospel were clutching at the spoils. 
Luther could see that ill had come with the change 
as well as good. 

' Look,' he said sadlj T , ' at the time when the 
truth was unknown, and men were lost in idolatry, 
and trusted in their own works. Then was charity 



LUTIIEK. 69 

without end or measure. Then it snowed with 
gifts. Cloisters were founded, and there were en- 
dowments for Mass priests. Churches were splen- 
didly decorated. How blind is the world become.' 
Drunkenness, too, seemed to spread, and usury and 
a thousand other vices. It tried his faith. Yet he 
said, ' Never do we act better than when we know 
not what we are doing, or than when we think we 
are foolish and imprudent, for strength is perfected 
in weakness, and the best we do is what comes 
straight from the heart.' 

The Protestants were not the only spoilers ol the 
Church lands. Some one told a story of a dog at 
Lintz, which used to go every day with a basket to 
the market to fetch meat. One day some other 
dogs set upon him. He fought for his basket as 
long as he could ; but when he could fight no 
longer he snatched a piece of meat for himself and 
ran away with it. ' There is Kaiser Karl,' said 
Luther. ' He defended the estates of the Church 
while it was possible. But when the princes all 
began to plunder, he seized a few bishoprics as his 
own share.' 

He had a high respect generally for princes and 
nobles, and had many curious anecdotes of such 



70 LUTHEE. 

great persons. He did not think them much to be 
envied. 

£ Sovereigns and magistrates,' he said, ' have 
weighty things to handle, and have a sore time 
with them. The peasant is happy ; he has no 
cares. He never troubles himself as to how the 
world is going. If a peasant knew what the prince 
has to bear, he would thank God that made him 
what he was. But he sees only the outside splen- 
dour, the fine clothes, the gold chains, the castles 
and palaces. He never dreams of the perils and 
anxieties that beset great lords while he is stewing 
his pears at his stove. The Elector Frederick used 
to say that the peasant's life was the best of all ; 
and that happiness grew less at each step of the 
scale. The Emperor had most to trouble him, the 
princes next ; the nobles had endless vexations, 
and the burghers, though better off than the no- 
bles, had their trade losses and other worries. 
The peasant could watch his crops grow by the 
grace of God ; he sold what was needed to pay his 
tithes and taxes, and lived in peace and quiet. The 
servants in a family are easier than their masters. 
They do their work, and eat and drink and sing. 
My people, Wolf and Dorothy (the cook), are bet- 



LUTHEE. 71 

ter off than I and Katie. The higher you stand, 
the more your danger. Yet no one is content with 
his position. When the ass is well off, he begins 
to caper, and breaks his leg.' 

He loved and honoured his own Electors, but 
he thought they were over gentle. ' The Elector 
Frederick,' he said, ' was unwilling to punish evil 
doers. " Yes," he would say, " it is easy to take a 
man's life ; but can you give it him back ? " The 
Elector John would say, " Ah ! he will be a good 
fellow yet." God is merciful, but He is also just. 
Yet Dr. Schurf, one of our best judges, and a 
Christian man, cannot bear to hang a felon. The 
proverb says : "A thief for the gallows, a monk 
for the cloister, and a fish for the water." ' 

He had a respect for Pilate, and said some curi- 
ous things about him. Pilate, he declared, was a 
better man than many Popish princes ; he stood by 
the law, and would not have a prisoner condemned 
unheard. He tried many ways to release Christ ; 
he yielded at last when he was threatened with 
Caesar's anger. ' After all,' thought Pilate, ' it is 
but one poor wretch, who has no one to take His 
part ; better Pie should die than the whole people 
become His enemies.' ' Why,' it was asked, ' did 



72 LUTHER. 

Pilate scourge Christ?'' 'Pilate,' Luther said, 
' was a man of the world ; he scourged Him in the 
hope that the Jews would then be satisfied.' When 
he asked Christ what truth was, he meant ' What is 
the use of speaking truth in such a scene as this ? 
Truth won't help you ; look for some trick of law, 
and so you may escape.' It was asked again what 
object the devil could have had in moving Pilate's 
wife to interfere. Luther seemed to admit that it 
was the devil. i The devil,' he answered, ' said to 
himself, I have strangled ever so many prophets 
and have gained nothing by it ; Christ is not afraid 
of death ; better He should live, and I shall per- 
haps be able to tempt Him to do something wrong. 
The devil has fine notions in him ; he is no fool.' 

He had a high opinion of the Landgrave of 
Llesse, whom he called another Arminius. The 
Landgrave has a wild country, he said, but he keeps 
fine order in it, and his subjects can go about their 
business in peace. He listens to advice, and when 
he has made up his mind he acts promptly, and has 
taught his enemies to fear him. If he would give 
up the Gospel he might ask the Emperor for 
what he pleased, and have it. At Augsburg he 
said to the bishops, ' We desire peace. If you will 



LUTHER. 73 

not have peace and I must fall, be it so ; I shall not 
fall alone. The Bishop of Salzburg asked Arch- 
bishop Albert why he was so afraid of the Land- 
grave, who was but a poor prince. 'My dear 
friend,' the Archbishop replied, ' if you lived as 
near him as I do, you would feel as I do.' 

Singular things were spoken at Augsburg. A 
member of the Diet — his name is not preserved — 
said, ' If I was the Emperor I would gather to- 
gether the best of the Popish and Lutheran divines, 
shut them up in a house, and keep them there till 
they had agreed. I would then ask them if they 
believed what they had concluded upon and would 
die for it ; if they said Yes, I would set the house 
on fire and burn them there and then to prove their 
sincerity. Then I should be satisfied that they 
were right.' 

Luther always spoke well of Charles, in spite of 
the Edict of Worms. 

Strange (he said) to see two brothers like him and Ferdi- 
nand so unlike in their fortunes. Ferdinand always fails. 
Charles generally succeeds. Ferdinand calculates every 
detail, and will manage everything his own way. The 
Emperor does plainly and simply the best that he can, 
and knows that in many things he must look through his 



74 LUTHER. 

fingers. The Pope sent him into Germany to root us out 
and make an end of us. He came, and by the grace of 
God he has left us where we are. He is not bloody. He 
has true imperial gentleness and goodness — and fortune 
comes to him in his sleep. He must have some good 
angel. 

When the Emperor was once in France in time of peace, 
he was entertained by the king at a certain castle. One 
night after supper a young lady of noble birth was, by the 
king's order, introduced into his room. The Emperor 
asked her who she was and how she came there. She 
burst into tears and told him. He sent her to her par- 
ents uninjured, with an escort and handsome presents. 
In the war which followed he levelled that castle to the 
ground. 

The Antwerp manufacturers presented him with a tapes- 
try once, on which was wrought for a design the battle of 
Pavia and the capture of the French king. Charles would 
not take it. He had no pleasure, he said, in the miseries 
of others. 



Had Luther been a prophet he could have added 
another story still more to Charles's honour. Years 
after, when Luther was in his grave, and Charles, 
after the battle of Muhlberg, entered Wittenberg 
as a conqueror, some bishop pressed him to tear 
the body out of the ground and consign it to the 
names. He replied, ' I war not with the dead.'j 



LUTHER. 75 

Much as Luther admired Charles, however, his 
own sovereigns had his especial honour. 

The Elector Frederick (he said) was a wise, good man, 
who hated all display and lies and falsity. He was never 
married. His life was pure and modest, and his motto, 
1 Tantum quantum possim,' was a sign of his sense. Such 
a prince is a blessing from God. He was a fine manager 
and economist. He collected his own taxes, and kept his 
accounts strictly. If he visited one of his castles, he was 
lodged as an ordinary guest and paid his own bills, that 
his stewards might not be able to add charges for his en- 
tertainment. He gathered in with shovels and gave out 
with spoons. He listened patiently in his council, shut 
his eyes, and took notes of each opinion. Then he formed 
his own conclusion ; this and that advice will not answer, 
for this and that will come of it. 

Elector John consulted me how far he should agree to 
the Peasants' Articles at the time of the rebellion. He 
said : ' God has made me a prince and given me many 
horses. If there is to be a change I can be happy with 
eight horses or with four. I can be another man.' He 
had six young pages to wait on him. They read the Bible 
to him for six hours every day. He often went to sleep, 
but when he woke he had always some good text in his 
mouth. At sermon he took notes in a pocket-book. 
Church government and worldly government were well 
administered. The Emperor had only good to say of him. 



76 LUTHER. 

If his brother and he could have been cast into a single 
man, they would have made a wonder between them. The 
Elector John had a strong frame and a hard death. He 
roared like a lion. 

John Frederick (reigning elector in the latter part of 
Luther's life), though he hates untruth and loose living, is 
too indulgent. He fears God and has his five wits about 
him. God long preserve him. You never hear an un- 
chaste or dishonourable word come out of his lips. One 
fault he has : he eats and drinks too much. Perhaps so 
big a body requires more than a small one. Otherwise he 
works like a donkey ; and, drink what he will, he always 
reads the Bible before he sleeps. 

Luther hated lies as heartily as the Elector. 
' Lies,' he said, ' are always crooked, like a snake, 
which is never straight, whether still or moving — ■ 
never till it is dead — then it hangs out straight 
enough.' But he was against violence, even to de- 
stroy falsehood. ' Popery,' he said, ' can neither 
be destroyed by the sword nor sustained by the 
sword ; it is built on lies, it stands on lies, and can 
only be overthrown by truth. I like not those who 
go hotly to work. It is written, Preach and I will 
give thee power. "We forget the preaching, and 
would fly to force alone.' 

He much admired soldiers, especially if besides 



LUTHER. 7/ 

winning battles they knew how to rule afterwards, 
like Augustus and Julius Caesar. 

When a country has a good prince over it, all goes well. 
"Without a good prince things go backwards like a crab, 
and councillors, however many, will not mend them. A 
great soldier is the man ; he has not many words ; he 
knows what men are, and holds his tongue ; but when he 
does speak, he acts also. A real hero does not go about 
his work with vain imaginations. He is moved by God 
Almighty, and does what he undertakes to do. So Alex- 
ander conquered Persia, and Julius Csesar established the 
Eoman Empire. The Book of Judges shows what God 
can do by a single man and what happens when God does 
not provide a man. Certain ages seem more fruitful in 
great men than others. When I was a boy there were 
many. The Emperor Maximilian in Germany, Sigismund 
in Poland, Ladislaus in Hungary, Ferdinand, Emperor 
Charles's grandfather, in Spain — pious, wise, noble princes. 
There were good bishops too, who would have been with 
us had they been alive now. There was a Bishop of W T urz- 
burg who used to say, when he saw a rogue, ' To the 
cloister with you. Thou art useless to God or man.' He 
meant that in the cloister were only hogs and gluttons, 
who did nothing but eat, and drink, and sleep, and were 
of no more profit than as many rats. 

Luther knew that his life would be a short one. 
In his later days he compared himself to a knife 



78 LUTHER. 

from which the steel has been ground away, and 
only the soft iron left. The Princess Elector said 
one evening to him : ' I trust you have many days 
before you. You may live forty years yet, if God 
wills.' 'God forbid,' Luther answered. 'If God 
offered me Paradise in this world for forty years I 
w r ould not have it. I would rather my head was 
struck off. I never send for doctors. I will not 
have my life made miserable, that doctors may 
lengthen it by a twelvemonth.' 

The world itself, too, he conceived to be near its 
end. The last day he thought would be in some 
approaching Lent, on a ruddy morning when day 
and night were equal. 

The thread is ravelled out, and we are now visibly at the 
fringe. The present age is like the last withered apple 
hanging on the tree. Daniel's four Empires — Babylon, 
Persia, Greece, and Eome — are gone. The Eoman Beich 
lingers ; but it is the ' St. John's drink ' (the stirrup cup) 
and is fast departing. Signs in Heaven foretell the end. 
On earth there is building and planting and gathering of 
money. The arts are growing as if there was to be a new 
start, and the world was to become young again. I hope 
God will finish with it. We have come already to the 
White Horse. Another hundred years and all will be 



LUTHEK. 79 

over. The Gospel is despised. God's word will disappear 
for want of any to preach it. Mankind will turn into Epi- 
cureans and care for nothing. They will not believe that 
God exists. Then the voice will be heard 'Behold the 
Bridegroom cometh.' 

Some one observed that when Christ came there 
would be no faith at all on the earth, and the Gos- 
pel was still believed in that part of Germany. 

< Tush,' he said, 'it is but a corner. Asia and 
Africa have no gospel. In Europe, Greeks, Ital- 
ians, Spaniards, Hungarians, French, English, 
Poles, have no gospel. The small Electorate of 
Saxony will not hinder the end.' 

I can but gather specimens here and there out of 
the four closely-printed volumes of these conversa- 
tions. There is no such table-talk in literature, and 
it ought to be completely translated. I must take 
room for a few more illustrations. Luther was 
passionately fond of music. He said of it : — 

Music is one of the fairest of God's gifts to man ; Satan 
hates music, because it drives away temptation and evil 
thoughts. The notes make the words alive. It is the best 
refreshment to a troubled soul ; the heart as you listen re- 
covers its peace. It is a discipline too ; for it softens us 



80 LUTHER. 

and makes us temperate and reasonable. I would allow no 
man to be a schoolmaster who cannot sing, nor would I 
let him preach either. 

And again : — 

I have no pleasure in any man who, like the fanatics, 
despises music. It is no invention of ours. It is a gift 
from God to drive away the devil and make us forget our 
anger and impurity and pride and evil tempers. I place 
music next to theology. I can see why David and all the 
saints put their divinest thoughts into song. 

Luther s own hymns are not many ; but the few 
which he composed are jewels of purest water. 
One of them, the well-known — 

Ein' feste Burg ist unser Gott 

remains even in these days of Rationalism the Na- 
tional Fsalm of Germany. In the last great war 
the Prussian regiments went into battle chanting it. 
Though no one ever believed more intensely in 
the inspiration of the Bible, he was no worshipper 
of the mere letter — for he knew that over a large 
part of Scripture the original text was uncertain. 
In translating he trusted more to instinctive percep- 
tion than to minute scholarship. He said : — 



LUTHER. 81 

I am no Hebraist according to grammar and rules. I do 
not let myself be tied, but go freely through. Translation 
is a special gift and grace. A man may know many lan- 
guages, yet be unable to render one into another. The 
authors of the Septuagint were not good Hebrew scholars ; 
St. Jerome was better ; but, indeed, after the Babylonish 
captivity the language itself was corrupted. If Moses and 
the prophets rose again they would not understand the 
words which are given as theirs. "When we were translat- 
ing I gave my assistants these rules :— 

Attend to the grammar, but remember 

1. Holy Scripture speaks of the words and acts of God. 

2. Prefer always in translating the Old Testament a 
meaning consistent with the New. 

He could be critical, too, in his way. His objec- 
tions to the Epistle of St. James are well known. 
He says of another book : — i The story of Jonah 
is more incredible than any poet's fable. If it 
were not in the Bible I slionld langh at it. He 
was three days in the belly of a great fish ! why, 
the fish w T ould have digested him in three hours, 
and converted him into its own flesh and blood. 
The miracle of the Ked Sea was nothing to this. 
The sequel, too, is so foolish — when he is released 
he begins to rave and expostulate and make him- 
self miserable about a gourd. It is a great mystery.' 
6 



82 LUTIIEE. 

He shared in many of the popular superstitions. 
He believed in the reality of witchcraft, for in- 
stance. The devil he was convinced was personally 
present — perhaps omnipresent, doing every kind of 
mischief, and had many times assaulted himself. 
Many things might thus happen of a strange kind 
through the devil's agency. £Tor was he quick to 
recognise new scientific discoveries. 

' Modern astronomers,' he said, 6 pretend that the 
earth moves, and not the sun and firmament — as in 
a carriage or a boat we seem to be motionless our- 
selves, while the trees and banks sweep past us. 
These clever fellows will believe nothing old, and 
must have their own ideas. The Holy Scripture 
says, Joshua bade the sun stand still, not the earth.' 

But his powerful sense and detestation of false- 
hood gave him an instinctive insight into the tricks 
of charlatans. He regarded magic as unmixed 
imposture. He told a story of a Duke Albert of 
Saxony, to wdiom a Jew once offered a wonderful 
gem engraved with strange characters, alleging that 
it would make the wearer proof against cold steel 
and gunshot. ( I will try it first on thee,' the Duke 
said. He took the Jew out of doors with the gem 
on his neck, and ran his sword through him. ' So 



LUTHER. 83 

it would have been with me,' lie said, i if I had 
trusted thee.' 

Astrology, the calculation of a man's fortunes 
from the place of the planets among the stars, at 
the time of his birth was an accepted science. 
Erasmus might doubt, but Erasmus was almost 
alone in a world of believers. One other doubter 
was Luther, much to the scandal of his friend 
Melanchthon, with whom it was an article of faith. 
Melanchthon showed him the nativity of Cicero. 

I have no patience with sncli stuff (Luther said). Let 
any man answer this argument. Esau and Jacob were born 
of the same father and mother, at the same time, and under 
the same planets, but their nature was wholly different. 
You would persuade me that astrology is a true science. I 
shall not change my opinion. I am bachelor, master, and 
have been a monk. But the stars did not make me either 
one or the other. It was my own shame that I was a 
monk, and grieved and angered my father. I caught the 
Pope by his hair, and he caught me by mine. I married a 
runaway nun, and begat children with her. Who saw that 
in the stars ? Who foretold that ? It is like dice-throwing. 
You say you have a pair of dice that always throw twice six 
— you throw two, three, four, five, six, and you take no 
notice. When twice six turns up, you think it proves your 
case. The astrologer is right once or twice, and boasts of 



84 LUTHER. 

his art. He overlooks his mistakes. Astronomy is very 
well — astrology is naught. The example of Esau and 
Jacob proves it. 

They prophesied a flood — another deluge in 1524. No 
deluge came, though Burgomaster Hohndorf brought a 
quarter-cask of beer into his house to prepare for it. In 
1525 was the peasants' insurrection ; but no astrologer pro- 
phesied this. In the time of God's anger there was a con- 
junction of sin and wrath, which had more in it than 
conjunctions of the planets. 

I must leave these recorded sayings, pregnant as 
they are, and full of character as they are. 

I will add but one more. Luther said : ' If I die 
in my bed, it will be a grievous shame to the Pope. 
Popes, devils, kings, and princes have done their 
worst to hurt me ; yet here I am. The world for 
these two hundred years has hated no one as it hates 
me. I in turn have no love for the world. I 
know not that in all my life I have ever felt real 
enjoyment. I am well tired of it. God come soon 
and take me away.' 

I return to what remains to be told of Luther's 
early life. The storm which threatened Germany 
hung off till he was gone. The House of Saxony 
was divided into the Ducal or Albertine line and 



LUTHER. 85 

the Electoral or Ernestine line. Duke Henry dying 
was succeeded by the young Maurice, so famous 
afterwards. Maurice was a Protestant like the 
Elector ; but he was intriguing, ambitious, and un- 
scrupulous. Quarrels broke out between them, 
which a few years later brought the Elector to ruin. 
But Luther, as long as he lived, was able to keep 
the peace. 

The Council of Trent drew near. After the 
peace with France, in 1544, the Pope began again 
to urge the Emperor to make an end of toleration. 
The free Council once promised, at which the 
Evangelical Doctors were to be represented, had 
been changed into a Council of Bishops, to be 
called and controlled by the Pope, before which 
the Evangelicals could be admitted only to plead as 
criminals. How such a Council would decide was 
not doubtful. The Protestant princes and theo- 
logians declined the position which was to be as- 
signed to them, and refused to appear. It was but 
too likely that, if the peace continued, the com- 
bined force of the Empire and of France would be 
directed against the League of Schmalkald, and 
that the League would be crushed after all in the 
unequal struggle. 



86 LUTHER. 

Luther saw what was coming, and poured out his 
indignation in the fiercest of his pamphlets. The 
' aller heiligst,' ' most holy ' Pope, became ' aller 
hollish,' 'most hellish.' The pretended 'free 
Council ' meant death and hell, and Germany was 
to be bathed in blood. ' That devilish Popery,' 
he said, 'is the last worse curse of the earth, 
the very worst that all the devils, with all their 
might, can generate. God help us all. Amen.' 
Yery dreadful and unbecoming language, the 
modern reader thinks, who has only known the 
wolf disguised in an innocent sheepskin. The wolf 
is the same that he was ; and if ever he recovers 
his power, he will show himself unchanged in his 
old nature. In Luther's time there was no sheep- 
skin ; there was not the smallest affectation of 
sheepskin. The one passionate desire of the See of 
Pome, and the army of faithful prelates and 
priests, was to carry fire and sword through every 
country which had dared to be spiritually free. 

In the midst of these prospects Luther reached 
his last birthday. He was tired, and sick at heart, 
and sick in body. In the summer of 1545 he had 
wished to retire to his farm, but Wittenberg could 
not spare him, and he continued regularly to 



LUTHEE. 87 

preach. His sight began to fail. In January, 1546, 
he began a letter to a friend, calling himself 'old, 
spent, worn, weary, cold, and with but one eye to 
see with.' On the 28th of that month he under- 
took a journey to Eisleben, where he had been 
born, to compose a difference between the Counts 
Mansfelt. He caught a chill on the road, but he 
seemed to shake it off, and was able to attend to 
business. He had fallen into the hands of lawyers, 
and the affair went on but slowly. On the 14th of 
February he preached, and, as it turned out, for 
the last time, in Eisleben Church, xln issue in 
the leg, artificially kept open to relieve his system, 
had been allowed to heal for want of proper 
attendance. He was weak and exhausted after the 
sermon. He felt the end near, and wished to be 
with his family again. 'I will get home,' he 
said, ' and get into my coffin, and give the worms a 
fat doctor.' 

But wife and home he was never to see again, 
and he was to pass from off the earth at the same 
spot where his eyes were first opened to the light. 
On the 17th he had a sharp pain in his chest. It 
went off, however ; he was at supper in the pub- 
lic room, and talked with his usual energy. He 



88 LUTHER. 

retired, went to bed, slept, woke, prayed, slept 
again ; then at midnight called his servant. ' I 
feel strangely,' he said : ' I shall stay here ; I shall 
never leave Eisleben.' He grew restless, rose, 
moved into an adjoining room, and lay upon a sofa. 
His two sons were with him, with his friend Jonas. 
' It is death,' he said ;/ 1 am going : " Father, into 
Thy hands I commend my spirit." ' 

Jonas asked him if he would still stand by Christ 
and the doctrine which he had preached. He said 
' Yes.' He slept once more, breathing quietly, but 
his feet grew cold. Between two and three in the 
morning he died. 

The body lay in state for a day ; a likeness was 

taken of him before the features changed. A cast 

from the face was taken afterwards ; the athlete 

expression gone, the essential nature of him — 

grave, tender, majestic — taking the place of it, as 

his own disturbed life appears now when it is 

calmed down into a memory. The Elector, John 

Frederick, hurried to see him ; the Counts Mansf elt 

ended beside his body the controversies which he 

had come to compose. On the 20th he was set on 

a car to be carried back to "Wittenberg, with an 

armed escort of cavalry. The people of Eisleben 
L.oFC. 



LUTHER. 89 

attended him to the gates. The church bells tolled 
in the villages along the road. Two days later he 
reached his last resting-place at Wittenberg. 
Melanchthon cried after him as they laid him in 
his grave : ' My Father, my Father. The chariot 
of Israel and the horseman thereof.' 

His will, which is extremely characteristic, had 
been drawn by himself four years before. He left 
his wife well provided for, and because legal pro- 
ceedings might be raised upon his marriage, he 
committed her to the special protection of the 
Elector. Children, friends, servants, were all re- 
membered. 

Finally (he said), seeing I do not use legal forms, I de- 
sire all men to take these words as mine. I am known 
openly in Heaven, on Earth, and in Hell also ; and I may 
be believed and trusted better than any notary. To me 
a poor, unworthy, miserable sinner, God, the Father of 
mercy, has entrusted the Gospel of His dear Son, and has 
made me therein true and faithful. Through my means 
many in this world have received the Gospel, and hold 
me as a true teacher, despite of popes, emperors, kings, 
princes, priests, and all the devil's wrath. Let them be- 
lieve me also in the small matter of my last will and testa- 
ment, this being written in my own hand, which otherwise 
is not unknown. Let it be understood that here is the 



90 LUTHER. 

earnest, deliberate meaning of Doctor Martin Luther, 
God's notary and witness in his Gospel, confirmed by his 
own hand and seal. — January 6, 1542. 

Nothing remains to be said. Philosophic histor- 
ians tell us that Luther succeeded because he came 
in the fulness of time, because the age was ripe for 
him, because forces were at work which would 
have brought about the same changes if he had 
never been born. Some changes there might have 
been, but not the same. The forces computable by 
philosophy can destroy, but they cannot create. 
The false spiritual despotism which dominated Eu- 
rope would have fallen from its own hollowness. 
But a lie may perish, and no living belief may rise 
again out of the ruins. A living belief can rise 
only out of a believing human soul, and that any 
faith, any piety, is alive now in Europe, even in 
the .Roman Church itself, whose insolent hypocrisy 
he humbled into shame, is due in large measure to 
the poor miner's son who was born in a Saxon vil- 
lage four hundred years ago. 

THE END. 



AUTHORIZED EDITION. 



Carlyle' s Reminiscences. 

EDITED BY 

JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE. 



One Vol., 8vo. ----- Price, $2.50. 
CHEAP EDITION - 60 cents. 



Mr. Froude has given to the public one of those books which 
must always be the rarest and most valuable in biographical liter- 
ature — the life of one of the really dominant personalities of an 
epoch, written by a skillful and fearless hand, under circumstances 
which give it the value of autobiography, and while the personal, 
as well as the literary, influence of the subject is still potent. 



"If it were ten times as long as it is, if Mr. Froude had given us a dozen instead of 
two volumes, no one could ever weary of reading the work. The letters written by Car- 
lyle are alone absorbing in the interest they awake, and in the entertainment they afford. 
They give, if not a clearer, at least a more vivid portrait of his peculiar personality, than 
any biographer could possibly give. And they are very spicy reading. * * * That the 
reader will find the work supremely interesting is beyond the possibility of doubt, and we 
are equally positive that he will re-read them as often as he craves a vigorous and refresh- 
ing mental tonic." — Boston Courier. 

"Nothing thatCarlyle has published, since "Sartor Resartus" surprised the world in 
1836, is equal to it in natural simplicity, in the full utterance of the heart, in clear, bright, 

Eersonal pictures of contemporary life. The key to Carlyle' s whole career is found in his 
rief memories of his father; the story of his beginnings at authorship and of the steps 
by which he went on from book to book is told in his efforts to express what Mrs. Carlyle 
was to him ; his sketches of Edward Irving and of Lord Jeffrey account for passages in 
his own life which could only be related by himself ; and the short glimpses ot his social 
interviews with Southey and Wordsworth at Sir Henry Taylor's hospitable house show 
what his powers of discrimination were, when, in the prime of life, he mingled freely with 
men who were his peers. Altogether this book is very precious." — Boston Herald. 

"It is a curious volume, rich in autobiography, abounding in annecdote, full of the 
quaintness, tenderness, humor, frankness and caustic quality of Carlyle's many-sided 
queries." — New York Tribune. 

" Nothing that Carlyle wrote is of greater interest than this Collection of Reminiscences 
* * * they bring us face to face with Carlyle himself revealing his singular nature with 
all his eccentricities." — N. Y. Evening Post. 



*#* For Sale by all booksellers, or sent, post-paid, upon receipt of price, by 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers, 

743 and 745 Broadway, New Yorjk. 



«V«p in process of publication, uniform with Epochs of Modern History, each 
volume in xzmo size, and complete in itself. 

diprf s of j&ifitf {tisforg. 

A series of Books narrating the HISTORY OF GREECE AND ROME, and of their 

relations to other Countries at Successive Epochs. Edited by the Rev. G. W. 

COX, M. A., Author of the " Aryan Mythology," " A History of 

Greece," etc., and jointly by CHARLES SANKEY, 

M. A., late Scholar of Queens College, Oxford. 



Volumes already issued in the " Epochs of Ancient History." Each one volum« 
12mo, cloth, $1.00. 



The GREEKS and the PERSIANS. By the Rev. G. \V. Cox, M. A., late Scholar of 
Trinity College, Oxford: Joint Editor of the Series. With four colored Maps. 

The EARLY ROMAN EMPIRE. From the Assassination of Julius Caesar to the 
Assassination of Domitian. By the Rev. W. Wolfe Capes, M. A., Reader of An- 
cient History in the University of Oxford. With two colored maps. 

The ATHENIAN EMPIRE from the FLIGHT of XERXES to the FALL of 
ATHENS. By the Rev. G. W. Cox, M. A., late Scholar of Trinity College, Oxford : 
Joint Editor of the Series. With five Maps. 

The ROMAN TRIUMVIRATES. By the Very Rev. Charles Merivale, D. D., 
Dean of Ely. 

EARLY ROME, to its Capture by the Gauls. By Wilhelm Ihne, Author of "History 
of Rome. ; ' With Map. 

THE AGE OF THE ANTONINES. By the Rev. W. Wolfe Capes, M. A., Reader 
of Ancient History in the University at Oxford. 

The GRACCHI, MARIUS, and SULLA. By A. H. Beesly. With Maps. 

THE RISE OF THE MACEDONIAN EMPIRE. By A. M. Curteis, M. A. i 
vol., i6mo, with maps and plans. 

TROY — Its Legend, History, and Literature, with a sketch of the Topography of the 
Troad. By S. G. W. Benjamin, i vol. i6mo. With a map. 

ROME AND CARTHAGE. By R. Bosworth Smith, M.A. 

The above 10 volumes in Roxburg Style. Sold only in sets. Price, per set, $10.00. 



*** The above books for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent, post or express charges 
/aid, upon receipt of the price by the Publishers, 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, 

743 and 745 Broadway, New Yo&k. 



AUTHORIZED AMERICAN EDITIONS. 

yronb^s Ijistoriral ftjorhs, 

THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 

Prom the Fall of Woolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. 



THE COMPLETE WORK IN TWELVE VOLVME8, 



By JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE, M. A. 



Mr. Froude is a pictorial historian, and his skill in description and full- 
ness of knowledge make his work abound in scenes and passages that are 
almost new to the general reader. We close his pages with unfeigned re- 
gret, and we bid him good speed on his noble mission of exploring the 
sources of English history in one of its most remarkable periods. — Brit- 
ish Quarterly Review. 

THE NEW LIBRARY EDITION. 

Extra cloth, gilt top, and uniform in general style with the re-issue of 
Mommsen's Rome and Curtius's Greece. Complete in 12 vols. i2mo, 
in a box. Sold only in sets. Price per set, $18.00. 
Note. The old Library, Chelsea, and Popular Editions will be discojitinued. A few 

sets and single volumes can still be supplied. 



SHORT STUDIES ON GREAT SUBJECTS. 

THE NEW LIBRARY EDITION. Three vols. i2mo. 
Uniform in General Style with the New Library Edi- 
tion of the History of England. Per vol $1.50 



THE ENGLISH IN IRELAND 

During the Eighteenth Century. 
Three vols. i2mo. New Library Edition. Per vol $1.50 



* # * The above books for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent, post or ex* 
press charges paid, upon receipt of the price by the Publishers, 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, 

743 and 745 Broadway, New York. 



AUTHORIZED EDITION. 



Thomas Carlyle. 

A History of the first Forty Years of his Life, 
1795 to 1835. 

By JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE, M.A. 

Two Vols., 8vo. - $4.00. 

Cheap E dition, two wis, in on e, $1.50. 

Mr. Froude has given to the public one of those books which 
must always be the rarest and most valuable in biographical lit- 
erature — the life of one of the really dominant personalities of an 
epoch, written by a skilful and fearless hand, under circumstances 
which give it the value of autobiography, and, while the personal, 
as well as the literary, influence of its subject is still potent. 
If the opinion of a high authority is well founded — that Carlyle 
is to be, to the view of the future, the foremost literary figure of 
our time— this biography will give to coming students such a faith, 
ful and vivid personal picture as has never accompanied a great 
name before, unless, perhaps, in the case of Lockhart's" Life 
of Scott." 



41 History never runs thin from Mr. Froude's pen, and here is certainly a solid and 
picturesque story of the great Scotchman's life. It is the story of Carlyle's appren- 
ticeship to literature, the picture of a stout, brave, weird, masterful struggle for bread 
and fame." — Literary World. 

" In this volume we have a portrait of a wonderful Man. Thomas Carlyle was 
fortunate in his choice of a biographer. Mr. Froude understands his man and the pub- 
lic for which he is writing, and he has been honest towards both. It is seldom that we 
have taken up a Memoir and become so thoroughly fascinated." — National Baptist, 

"This book will prove extremely useful to the student of Carlyle; it lights up much 
that was obscure, both in the man, and in his work." — N. Y. Sun. 

" This work is a classic and will go with Carlyle and his fame to posterity. It is 
brought in a masterly fashion." — Critic. 



*** For Sale by all booksellers, or sent, post-paid, upon receipt of f rice, by 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers, 

743 and 745 Broadway, New York. 



THE BEGINNINGS OF HISTORY 

According to the Bible and the Traditions of the Oriental Peoples. From 
the Creation of Man to the Deluge. By Francois Lenormant. 
Professor of Archceology at the National Library of France, etc. 
(Translated from the Second French Edition). With an introduction 
by Francis Brown, Associate Professor in Biblical Philology, 
Union Theological Seminary. 



1 Vol., 12mo 9 600 pages, - $2,50. 



11 "What should we see in the first chapters of Genesis ? " writes M. Lenor- 
mant in his preface— "A revealed narrative, or a human tradition, gathered 
up for preservation by inspired writers as the oldest memory of their race ? 
This is the problem which I have been led to examine by comparing the nar- 
rative of the Bible with those which were current among the civilized peo- 
ples of most ancient origin by which Israel was surrounded, and from the 
midst of which it came." 

The book is not more erudite than it is absorbing in its interest. It has 
had an immense influence upon contemporary thought ; and has approached 
its task with an unusual mingling of the reverent and the scientific spirit. 



11 That the l Oriental Peoples ' had legends on the Creation, the Fall of Man, the 
Deluge, and other primitive events, there is no denying. Nor is there any need o(: 
denying it, as this admirable volume shows. Mr. Lenormant is not only a believer 
in revelation, but a devout confessor of what came by Moses ; as well as of what came 
by Christ. In this explanation of Chaldean, Babylonian, Assyrian and Phenician 
tradition, he discloses a prodigality of thought and skill allied to great variety of pur- 
suit, and diligent manipulation of what he has secured. He k spoils the Egyptians ' 
by boldly using for Christian purposes materials, which, if left unused, might be 
turned against the credibility of the Mosaic records. 

" From the mass of tradition here examined it would seem that if these ancient 
legends have a common basis of truth, the first part of Genesis stands more generally 
related to the religious history of mankind, than if it is taken primarily as one account, 
by one man, to one people. . . . While not claiming for the author the 
setting forth of the absolute truth, nor the drawing from what he has set forth the 
soundest conclusions, we can assure our readers of a diminishing fear of learned un- 
belief after the perusal of this work."— The New E?iglander. 

" With reference to the book as a whole it may be said : (i). That nowhere else can 
one obtain the mass of information upon this subject in so convenient a form; (2). That 
the investigation is conducted in a truly scientific manner, and with an eminently 
Christian spirit ; (3). That the results, though very different from those in common 
acceptance, contain much that is interesting and to say the least, plausible ; (4). That 
the author while he seems in a number of cases to be injudicious in his state- 
ments and conclusions, has done work in investigation and in working out details that 
will be of service to all, whether general readers or specialists."— The Hebrew 
Student. 

^ The work is one that deserves to be studied by all students of ancient history, and 
In particular by ministers of the Gospel, whose office requires them to interpret the 
Scriptures, and who ought not to be ignorant of the latest and most interesting con- 
tribution of science to the elucidation to the sacred volume."— New York Tribune. 



* # * For Sale by all booksellers, or sent, post-paid, upon receipt of price, 

CHARLES SCRIBNERS SONS, Publishers, 

743 and 745 Broadway, New York, 



The 



Conflict of Christianity 

WITH HEATHENISM. 

By DR. GERHARD UHLHORN. 

TRANS LA TED B Y 

PROF. EGBERT C. SMYTH and REV. C. J. H. ROPE& 



One Volume, Crown 8vo, $2.SO. 

This volume describes with extraordinary vividness and spirit the 
religious and moral condition of the Pagan world, the rise and spread 
of Christianity, its conflict with heathenism, and its final victory. There 
is no work that portrays the heroic age of the ancient church with equal 
spirit, elegance, and incisive power. The author has made thorough and 
independent study both of the early Christian literature and also of the 
contemporary records of classic heathenism. 



CRITICAL. NOTICES. 

"It is easy to see why this \olume is so highly esteemed. It is 
systematic, thorough, and concise. But its power is in the wide mental 
vision and well-balanced imagination of the author, which enable him to 
reconstruct the scenes of ancient history. An exceptional clearness and 
force mark his style." — Boston Advertiser. 

" One might read many books without obtaining more than a fraction 
of the profitable information here conveyed ; and he might search a long 
time before finding one which would so thoroughly fix his attention and 
command his interest." — Phil. S. S. Times. 

"Dr. Uhlhorn has described the great conflict with the power of a 
master. His style is strong and attractive, his descriptions vivid and 
graphic, his illustrations highly colored, and his presentation of the subject 
earnest and effective." — Providence Journal. 

" The work is marked for its broad humanitarian views, its learning, 
and the wide discretion in selecting from the great field the points oi 
deepest interest." — Chicago biter-Ocean. 

"This is one of those clear, strong, thorough-going books which are 
a scholar's delight."— Hartford Religious Herald. 



*#* For sale by all booksellers, or sent post-paid upon receipt of 
p-icc^ by 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, 

Nos. 743 and 745 Broadway, New York, 



" These volumes contain the ripe results of the studies of men whi 
are authorities in their respective fields."— The Nation. 



(fpdjs of Jl&obprn jteopg. 

Each 1 vol. 16mo., with Outline Maps. Price per volume, in cloth, $1.00. 
Each Volume complete in itself and sold separately. 



Edited by EDWARD E. MORRIS, M.A. 



The ERA of the PROTESTANT REVOLUTION. By F. Seebohm, Author of 
" The Oxford Reformers — Colet, Erasmus, More." 

The CRUSADES. By the Rev. G. W.Cox, M. A., Author of the " History of Greece." 

The THIRTY YEARS' WAR, 1618—1648. By Samuel Rawson Gardiner. 

The HOUSES of LANCASTER and YORK; with the CONQUEST and LOSS 
of FRANCE. By James Gairdner, of the Public Record Office. 

The FRENCH REVOLUTION and FIRST EMPIRE ; an Historical Sketch.. 
By Wm. O'Connor Morris, with an Appendix by Hon. Andrew D. White. 

The AGE OF ELIZABETH. By the Rev. M. Creighton, M.A. 

The PURITAN REVOLUTION. By J. Langton Sanford. 

The FALL of the STUARTS; and WESTERN EUROPE from i6 7 8 to 1697. 
By the Rev. Edward Hale, M.A., Assist. Master at Eton. 

The EARLY PLANTAGENETS and their relation to the HISTORY of EUROPE ; 
the foundatiou and growth of CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT. By the Rev. 
Wm. Stubbs, M.A., etc., Professor of Modern History in the University of Oxford. 

The BEGINNING of the MIDDLE AGES; CHARLES the GREAT and 
ALFRED; the HISTORY of ENGLAND in its connection with that of EUROPE 
in the NINTH CENTURY. By the Very Rev. R. W. Church, M.A. 

The AGE of ANNE. By Edward E. Morris, M.A., Editor of the Series. 

The NORMANS IN EUROPE. By the Rev. A. H. Johnson.M.A. 

EDWARD III. By the Rev. W. Warburton, M.A. 

FREDERICK the GREAT and the SEVEN YEARS' WAR. By F. W. Longman, 
of Bailie College, Oxford. 

The EPOCH of REFORM, 1830101850. By Justin McCarthy. 

The above 15 volumes in Roxburg Style, Leather Labels and Gilt Top. Put 
up in a handsome Box. Sold only in Sets. Price, per set, $15.00. 



*** The above books for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent, post or express 
charges paid, upon receipt of the price by the publishers, 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, 

743 and 745 Broadway, New York. 



OUTLINES OF PRIMITIVE BELIEF 

among the Indo-European Eaces. 

By CHARLES FRANCIS KEARY, M.A., 

of the British Museum. 



One vol, crown 8vo», - $2.50 o 

Mr. Keary's Book is not simply a series of essays in comparative myth- 
ology, it is a history of the legendary beliefs of the Indo-European races 
drawn from their language and literature. Mr. Keary has no pet theory to 
establish ; he proceeds in the spirit of the inquirer after truth simply, and 
his book is a rare example of patient research and unbiased opinion in a most 
fascinating field of exploration. 

" We have an important and singularly interesting contribution to our knowledge 
of pre-historic creeds in the Outlines of pre-historic Belief among the Indo-European 
Races, by Mr. C. F. Keary, of the British Museum. No contemporary essayist in 
the field of comparative mythology — and we do not except Max Muller — has known 
how to embellish and illumine a work of scientific aims and solid worth with so much 
imaginative power and literary charm. There are chapters in this volume that are as 
persuasive as a paper of Matthew Arnold's, as delightful as a poem. The author is 
not only a trained inquirer but he presents the fruits of his research with the skill and 
felicity of an artist." — Ne%v York Sun. 

"Mr._ Keary, having unusual advantages in the British Museum for studying 
comparative philology, has gone through all the authorities concerning Hindoo, 
Greek, early Norse, modern European, and other forms of faith in their early stages, 
and there has never before been so thorough and so captivating an exposition of them 
as that given in this book." — Philadelphia Bulletin. 

THE DAWN OF HISTORY. 

AN INTRODUCTION TO PRE-HISTORIC STUDY. 
Edited by C. F. KEARY, M.A., 

OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM. 



One Volume, 12mo., - $1.2S. 

This work treats successively of the earliest traces of man in the re- 
mains discovered in caves or elsewhere in different parts of Europe ; of 
language, its growth, and the story it tells of the pre-historic users of it ; of 
the races of mankind, early social life, the religions, mythologies, and folk- 
tales of mankind, and of the history of writing. A list of authorities is 
appended, and an index has been prepared specially for this edition. 



" The book may be heartily recommended as probably the most satisfactory 
summary of the subject that there is." — Nation. 

" A fascinating manual, without a vestige of the dullness usually charged against 
scientific works. ... In its way, the work is a model of what a popular scientific 
work should be ; it is readable, it is easily understood, and its style is simple, yet dig- 
nified, avoiding equally the affection of the nursery and of the laboratory." — 

Boston Sat. Eve. Gazette^ 

*#* For sale by all booksellers, or sent, post-paid, upon receipt of 
price, by 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers, 

743 and 745 Broadway, New York. 



The Religions of the Ancient World 

Including Egypt, Assyria and Babylonia, Persia, India, 
Phoenicia, Etruria, Greece, Rome. 

By GEORGE RAWLINSON, M.A. 



One Volume, 12mo, - $1.00* 

Uniform with " The Origin of Nations." 

Canon Rawlinson's great learning and his frequent contribu- 
tions to the history of ancient nations qualify him to treat the 
subject of this volume with a breadth of view and accuracy of 
knowledge that few other writers can lay claim to. The treatise 
is not intended to give an exhaustive review of ancient religions, 
but to enable the students of history to form a more accurate 
apprehension of the inner life of the ancient world. 

" The historical studies which have elevated this author's works to the 
highest position have made him familiar with those beliefs which once di- 
rected the world's thought ; and he has done literature no better service 
than in this little volume. . . . The book is, then, to be accepted 
as a sketch, and* as the most trustworthy sketch in our language, of the re- 
ligions discussed." — JV. Y. Christian Advocate. 

THE ORIGIN OF NATIONS 

By Professor GEORGE RAWLINSON, M.A. 



One Volume, 12mo. With maps, - - $1,00. 



The first part of this book, Early Civilizations, discusses the 
antiquity of civilization in Egypt and the other early nations of 
the East. The second part, Ethnic Affinities in the Ancient 
World, is an examination of the ethnology of Genesis, showing 
its accordance with the latest results of modern ethnographical 
science. 

" An attractive volume, which is well worthy of the careful consideration 
of every reader." — Observer. 

'' A work of genuine scholarly excellence and a useful offset to a great 
deal of the superficial current literature on such subjects." 

— Congregationalist. 

" Dr. Rawlmson brings to this discussion long and patient research, a 
vast knowledge and intimate acquaintance with wnat has been written on 
both sides of the question." — Brooklyn Unioii-Argus. 

*** For Sale by all booksellers, or sent, post-paid, upon receipt of Price., by 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers, 

743 and 745 Broadway, New York. 



The Theory of Preaching, 

OR 

LECTURES ON HOMILETICS. 

By Professor AUSTIN PHELPS, D.D. 



One volume. 8vo, ■* $2.60 

This work, now offered to the public, is the growth of 
more than thirty years' practical experience in teaching. 
While primarily designed for professional readers, it will be 
found to contain much that will be of interest to thoughtful 
laymen. The writings of a master of style of broad and 
catholic mind are always fascinating; in the present case the 
wealth of appropriate and pointed illustration renders this 
doubly the case, 

CRITICAL NOTICES. 

"In the range of Protestant homiletical literature, we venture to affirm that Its equal 
cannot be found for a conscientious, scholarly, and exhaustive treatment of the theory 
and practice of preaching. * * * To the treatment of his subject Dr. Phelps brings 
such qualifications as very few men now living possess. His is one of those delicate and 
sensitive natures which are instinctively critical, and yet full of what Matthew Arnold 
happily calls sweet reasonableness. * * * To this characteristic graciousness of 
nature Dr. Phelps adds a style which is preeminently adapted to his special work. It is 
nervous, epigrammatic, and racy." — The Examiner and Chronicle. 

" It is a wise, spirited, practical and devout treatise upon a topic of the utmost con- 
sequence to pastors and people alike, and to the salvation of mankind. It is elaborate 
but not redundant, rich in the fruits of experience, yet thoroughly timely and current, 
and it easily takes the very first rank among volumes of its class.— The Congrega- 
tionalist. 

"The layman will find it delightful _ reading, and ministers of all denominations and 
of all degrees of experience will rejoice in it as a veritable mine of wisdom." — New York 
Christian Advocate. 

"The volume is to be commended to young men as a superb example of the art in 
which it aims to instruct them." — The Independent. 

"The reading of it is a mental tonic. The preacher cannot but feel often his heart 
burning within him under its influence. We could wish it might be in the hands of every 
theological student and of every pastor." — The Watchman. i 

"Thirty-one years of experience as a professor of homiletics in a leading American 
Theological Seminary by a man of genius, learning and power, are condensed into this 
valuable volume."— Christian Intelligencer. 

" Our professional readers will make a great mistake if they suppose this volume is 
simply a heavy, monotonous discussion, chiefly adapted to the class-room. It is a 
delightful volume for general reading." — Boston Ziorfs Herald. 



*** For sale by all booksellers, or sent, post-paid, upon receipt oj 
trice, by 

CHARLES SCRIBNERS SONS, Publishers, 

743 and 745 Broadway, New York. 



Old Faiths in New Light 

BY 

NEWMAN SMYTH, 

Author of "The Religious Feeling." 



One Volume, 12mo, cloth, - $l.BO. 



This work aims to meet a growing need by gathering materials of 
faith which have been quarried by many specialists in their own depart- 
ments of Biblical study and scientific research, and by endeavoring to 
put these results of recent scholarship together according to one leading 
idea in a modern construction of old faith. Mr. Smyth's book is remark- 
able no less for its learning and wide acquaintance with prevailing modes 
of thought, than for its fairness and judicial spirit. 



CRITICAL NOTICES. 



"The author is logical and therefore clear. He also is master of a singularly 
attractive literary style. Few writers, whose books come under our eye, succeed in 
treating metaphysical and philosophical themes in a maimer at once so forcible and so 
interesting. We speak strongly about this book, because we think it exceptionally 
valuable. It is just such a book as ought to be in the hands of all intelligent men and 
women who have received an education sufficient to enable them to read intelligently 
about such subjects as are discussed herein, and the number of such persons is very 
much larger than some people think." — Congregationalist. 

"We have before had occasion to notice the force and elegance of this writer, and 
his new book shows scholarship even more advanced. * * * When we say, with 
some knowledge of how much is undertaken by the saying, that there is probably no book 
of moderate compass which combines in greater degree clearness of style with profundity 
of subject and of reasoning, we fulfil simple duty to an author whose success is all the 
more marked and gratifying from the multitude of kindred attempts with which we have 
been flooded from all sorts of pens." — Presbyteria,7i. 

" The book impresses us as clear, cogent and helpful, as vigorous in style as it is 
honest in purpose, and calculated to render valuable service in showing that religion and 
science are not antagonists but allies, and that both lead up toward the one God. We 
fancy that a good many readers of this volume will entertain toward the author a feeling 
of sincere personal gratitude." — Boston Journal. 

" On the whole, we do not know of a book which may better be commended to 
thoughtful persons whose minds have been unsettled by objections of modern thought 
It will be found a wholesome work for every minister in the land to read." 

— Examiner and Chronicle. 

"It is a longtime since we have met with an abler or fresher theological treatise 
than Old Faiths in New Light, by Newman Smyth, an author who in his work on 
"The Religious Feeling" has already shown ability as an expounder of Christian 
doctrine. " —Independent. 



*** For sale iy all booksellers, or sent postpaid, upon receipt of frice, 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, 

Nos. 743 and 745 Broadway, New York 



The Religions of China. 

CONFUCIANISM AND TAOISM DESCRIBED AND COM- 
PARED WITH CHRISTIANITY. 

By JAMES LEGGE, 

Professor of the Chinese La?iguage and Literature i?i the University of Oxford. 



One volume, 12mo, - *- $l.SO. 



Professor Legge's work is by far the most simple and easily 
comprehended exposition of Chinese religions that exists, and 
is remarkable for its freedom from a polemic bias, and for the 
easy, confident touch of a man whose mind is saturated with 
his subject and at home in every branch of it. 



"The entire volume deserves a wide and attentive reading." — Chicago Tribune. 

" Prof. Legge is. perhaps, the highest authority on all matters connected with a 
knowledge of the Chinese literature and philosophy." — Richmond Central Presby- 
terian. 

"Prof. Legge's work is a remarkably instructive and critical contribution to our 
knowledge of the Chinese." — St. Louis Central Christian Advocate. 

" As the work of perhaps the first of scholars in all that pertains to China, we heartily 
commend this book." — Buffalo Courier. 

" For the scholar and the minister who desire information about the religions of the 
largest nation on earth, and who are likely to play an important part hereafter in the 
history of the world, it is an important publication."— Richmond Southern Churchman. 

" In this volume Prof. Legge presents the results of careful study, with a clearness of 
style and method which entitles him to the gratitude of readers who are interested in the 
study of comparative religions." — Boston Daily Journal. 

"Nowhere else is so clear a detail of the distinctive features and characteristics of 
the Chinese religions given, and nowhere else are the contrasts and similarities between 
them and the Christian religion brought within a more compact compass. — 

& ° Albany Journal, 

"Prof. Legge's philological discussions are extremely interesting, and his reasoning 
close and fascinating. Incidentally he gives us an insight into the social and tamily re- 
lations of the Chinese, which are involved in and governed by the duties and obligations 
imposed by religion." — Waterbury American. 



%* For sale by all booksellers, or sent, post-paid, upon receipt o) 
frice, by 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers, 

743 and 745 Broadway, New York. 



£By Arrangement with the Author.} 

The Best Biography of the Greatest of the Romans. 

CjESAB: A Sketch. 

BY 

JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE, M.A. 

Library Edition, 8vo, Cloth, Gilt Top, $2.BO. 

POPULAR EDITION (from name plates), 12mo, 75 Cent*. 

Uniform wi'h Popular Edition of Fronde' 1 8 History 
of England, and Short Studies. 



There is no historical writer of our time who can rival Mr. Fronde in vivid 
delineation of character, grace and clearness of style, and elegant anu solid 
■cholarship. In his Life of Ceesar, all these qualities appear in their fullest 
perfection, resulting in a fascinating narrative which will be read with keen 
delight by a multitude of readers, and will enhance, if possible, Mr. Fronde's 
brilliant reputation. 



CRITICAL NOTICES. 

4, The book is charmingly written, and, on the whole, wisely written. There are many 
admirable, really noble, passages ; there are hundreds of pages which few living men 
could match. * * * The political life of Caesar is explained with singular lucidity, 
and with what seems to us remarkable fairness. The horrible condition of Roman 
society under the rule of the magnates is painted with startling power and brilliance of 
coloring. — Atlantic Monthly. 

" Mr. Froude's latest work, " Caesar," is affluent of his most distinctive traits. 
Nothing that he has written is more brilliant, more incisive, more interesttng. * * * 
He combines into a compact and nervous narrative all that is known of the personal, 
social, political, and military life of Caesar ; and with his sketch of Caesar, includes other 
brilliant sketches of the great men, his friends or rivals, who contemporaneously with 
him formed the principal figures in the Roman world." — Harper's Monthly. 

"This book is a most fascinating biography, and is by far the best account of Julius 
Caesar to be found in the English language." — London Standard. 

" It is the best biography of the greatest of the Romans we have, and it is in some 
respects Mr. Froude's best piece of historical writing." — Hartford Courant. 

Mr. Froude has given the public the best of all recent books on the life, characfeel 
and career of Julius Caesar."— Phila. Eve. Bulletin. 



%* For sale by all booksellers, or will be sent^ prepaid, upon, 
receipt of price t by 

CHARLES SCRTBNER'S SONS, 

743 and 745 Broadway, New Yorjs 



LIFE OF 

Lord Lawrence 

BY 

R. BOSWORTH SMITH, M.A., 

LATE FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE; ASSISTANT MASTER AT HARROW 

SCHOOL. 



With Maps and Portraits, 2 vols,, 8vo, $5,00. 



"As a biography, the work is an inthralling one, rich in 
anecdotes and incidents of Lord Lawrence's tempestuous nature 
and beneficent career that bring into bold relief his strongly- 
marked and almost colossal individuality, and rich also in in- 
stances of his courage, his fortitude, his perseverance, his self- 
control, his magnanimity, and in the details of the splendid 
results of his masterful and masterly policy. . . . We know 
of no work on India to which the reader can refer with so great 
certainty for full and dispassionate information relative to the 
government of the country, the characteristics of its people, and 
the fateful events of the forty eventful years of Lord Lawrence's 
Indian career." — Harper's Magazine. 

"John Lawrence, the name by which the late Viceroy of India 
will always be best known, has been fortunate in his biographer, 
Mr. Bosworth Smith, who is an accomplished writer and a faith- 
ful, unflinching admirer of his hero. He has produced an enter- 
taining as well as a valuable book ; the general reader will 
certainly find it attractive ; the student of recent history will 
discover in its pages matters of deep interest to him." — London 
Daily Telegraph. 

*** For sale by all booksellers, or sent, post-paid, upon receipt of price, by 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers, 

743 and 745 Broadway, New York. 



Men and Books; 

OR, STUDIES IN HOMILETICS 

Lectures Introductory to the " Theory of Preaching." 
By Professor AUSTIN PHELPS, D.D. 



One Volume. Crown 8vo. - - $2.00 



Professor Phelps' second volume of lectures is more popular and gen- 
eral in its application than " The Theory of Preaching." It is devoted to 
a discussion of the sources of culture and power in the profession of the 
pulpit, its power to absorb and appropriate to its own uses the world of 
real life in the present, and the world of the past, as it lives in books. 

There is but little in the volume that is not just as valuable to all 
students looking forward to a learned profession as to theological students, 
and the charm of the style and the lofty tone of the book make it difficult 
to lay it down when it is once taken up. 



"It is a book obviously free from all padding. It is a live book, animated as well 
as sound and instructive, in which conventionalities are brushed aside, and the autho** 
goes straight to the marrow of the subject. No minister can read it without being waked 
up to a higher conception of the possibilities of his calling." 

— Professor George P. Fisher. 

" It is one of the most helpful books in the interests of self-culture that has ever been 
written. While specially intende \ for young clergymen, it is almost equally well adapted 
for students in all the liberal professions." — Standard of the Cross. 

"We are sure that no minister or candidate for the ministry can read it withoutprofit. 
It is a tonic for one's mind to read a book so laden with thought and suggestion, and 
written in a style so fresh, strong and bracing." — Boston Watchman. 

" Viewed in this light, for their orderly and wise and rich suggestiveness, these lec- 
ture^ of Professor Phelps are of simply incomparable merit. Every page is crowded with 
observations and suggestions of striking pertinence and force, and of that kind of wisdom 
which touches the roots of a matter. Should one begin to make quotations illustrative of 
this remark, there would be no end of them. While the book is meant specially for the 

Ereaciier, so rich is it in sage remark, in acute discernment, in penetrating observation of 
ow men are most apt to be influenced, and what are the most telling qualities in the va- 
rious forms of literary expression, it must become a favorite treatise with the best minds in 
all the other professions. The author is, in a very high sense of the term, an artist, as for 
a quarter of a century he has been one of the most skillful instructors of young men in 
that which is the noblest of all the arts." — Chicago Advatice. 



*** For sale by all booksellers, or sent, post-paid, upon receipt oj 
frice, by 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers, 

743 and 745 Broadway, New York, 



MAR 1 1902 
THE WRITINGS OF GEORGE P. FISHER, D.D. 

Professor of Ecclesiastical History in Yale College. 

ESSAYS ON THE SUPERNATURAL ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY, 

With special references to the theories of Renan, Strauss, and the 
Tubingen School. 

New and enlarged edition. One Vol. 8vo, $3,00. 

" Able and scholarly essays on the Supernatural Origin of Christianity, in which 
Prof. Fisher discusses such subjects as the genuineness of the Gospel of John, 
Baur's view of early Christian History and Literature, and the mythical theory of 
Strauss." — North American Review. 

THE BEGINNINGS OF CHRISTIANITY, 

With a view of the state of the Roman World at the Birth of Christ. 

One Vol. 8vo, . . $3.00. 

" Prof. Fisher has displayed in this, as in his previous published writings, that 
catholicity and that calm judicial quality of mind which are so indispensable to a 
true historical critic, and so natural in one, who, like the author, is a loving disciple 
of the revered Neander." — Boston Advertiser. 

HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION. 

One Vol. 8vo, . . $3.00. 

From Prof. Charles A. Aiken^ D.D., Princeton Theological Seminary. 
Prof. Fisher's History of the Reformation presents the results of prolonged, 
extended, and exact study with those excellent qualities of style, which are so char- 
acteristic of him — clearness, smoothness, judicial fairness, vividness, felicity in ar- 
ranging material, as well as in grouping and delineating characters. It must become 
not only a library favorite, but a popular manual where such a work is required for 
instruction and study. For such uses it seems to me admirably adapted. 

DISCUSSIONS IN HISTORY AND THEOLOGY. 

One Vol. 8vo, . . $3.00. 

11 Prof. Fisher has gathered here a number of essays on subjects connected with 
those departments of study and research which have engaged his special attention, 
and in which he has made himself an authority." 

FAITH AND RATIONALISM. 

One Vol. 12mo, . $1.25. 

" This little volume may be regarded as virtually a primer of modern religious 
thought, which contains within its condensed pages rich materials that are not easily 
gathered from the great volumes of our theological authors. Alike in learning, style 
and power of discrimination, it is honorable to the author and to his university, 
which does not urge the claims of science by slighting the worth of faith or 
philosophy." — N. V. Times. 

THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 

One Vol. 12mo. Taper, 30 cts. Cloth, 40 cts. 

u This masterly essay of Professor Fisher is one of the best arguments for 
Christianity that could be placed in the hands of those who have come under 
influence of sceptical writers. 



CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers, 

743 and 745 Broadway, New York. 



Price Thirty Cents, 



Luther 



A Short Biography. 



BY JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE, 

Honorary Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford. 



NEW-YORK: 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS. 

1884. 

Authorised Edition. 



THE LIFE 

OF 

MARTIN LUTHER 

By Prof. JULIUS KOSTLIN. 



Complete and Authorized Edition. 



WITH FOUR FAC-SIMILES IN LITHOGRAPHY, AND NEARLY ONE HUNDRED ILLUSTRATIONS FROM 
AUTHENTIC SOURCES. ONE VOLUME, CROWN 8VO. PRICE, $2.50. 



^HIS is the authorized translation of Professor Kostlin's Life of Martin 
Luther. It contains all the wood-cuts given in the German editions, 
fac-similes of important and most interesting historical documents, and 
reproductions of numerous rare portraits of Luther, his wife, and his 
friends. Twenty years ago, Professor Kostlin published his book, 
Luther'' s Theology and its Historical Development, a work which showed 
profound learning and a thorough study of the Reformation in Germany. 
For many years he has been engaged in researches bearing upon the life 
and times of Luther, and in preparing this biography he has been able 
to use a mass of entirely new material which has come to his hands, and 
his work, which was first published in Leipsic, was accepted, at once, as 
beyond question the best and the authoritative biography of the great 
reformer. 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, 

Publishers, New-York. 



THE HYMNS OF LUTHER 

In the best English Versions and the Original Text. Together with the 
Musical Arrangement.-; Written for or Associated with them. 

edited by 

Dr. LEONARD W. BACON, 

AND 

Prof. NATHAN H. ALLEN, Mus. Doc. 



One volume, unique binding, with vignette portrait, $2.00. 



f UTHER'S Hymns have been to the whole body of Protestant 
Christians a legacy only second to the noble and vigorous text of his 
translation of the Bible. "When we look at the influence which has 
gone out from his manuals of religious instruction," says Prof. George 
P. Fisher in a recent article, "and from the hymns which have been 
sung in churches and households and by armies on the march to battle, 
now for four centuries, the measure of his power is felt to be indeed 
incalculable." While they spring from the simplest melody, they have 
been set to music by such composers as Bach, and, indeed, the names of 
some of the greatest of the German music writers are associated with 
these wonderful hymns. 
This volume contains the only complete collection of the hymns, and the 
music with which they are identified, that has ever been presented to 
English-speaking people. The original words are printed with the best 
English version. Dr. Bacon has written a most interesting introduction, 
and prefaces each hymn with an account of its origin. Great care has 
been taken with the text and music, and the English texts are in all 
cases set to the same music as the originals. 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, 

Publishers , New - York . 



JUST PUBLISHED. FROM ADVANCE SHEETS. 



John Bull and His Island 

/ vol., i2tno. Paper, 50 cts. Cloth, $1 .00. 



n^HIS witty and incisive book on England, by an anonymous French 
author, is the sensation of the moment both in Paris and London. 

The British press and public have been compelled to laugh over the admir- 
able cleverness of the study, even while they protested ; and the fairer 
critics have recognized the striking truth and merit of the more serious 
criticism which forms no insignificant part of it. 

The volume has reached its twentieth large edition in Paris, while the 
present authorized translation — now published simultaneously in Eng- 
land and America — has been preparing under the supervision of the 
author ; and the London publishers write that the advance orders have 
already taken up the large first edition proposed by them. 

" Certainly not in our day has appeared a more bit- 
ing, comprehensive, and clever satire than this anony- 
mous French account of England. The author must 
have acquired his wonderful familiarity with Great 
Britain by a long and observant residence within her 
borders, and the shrewdness with which he puts his 
finger upon the weak spots of the English character is 
little short of marvelous. Either because he is shrewd 
enough to understand that an admixture of praise 
makes more effective his satire, or — and we believe 
the latter — from genuine admiration, he has much to 
say that is good of both people and island. * * It is 
certainly not to be wondered that the volume has pro- 
duced a profound sensation in London; and it will 
undoubtedly be widely read in this country. Enemies 
of England will read it with wicked glee; her friends 
with a mixture of pride and humiliation ; nobody, we 
apprehend, with indifference." — Boston Advertiser. 

CHARLES SCR.IBNER/S SONS, 

Publishers, New -York. 



__• 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: April 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



Library of Congress 
Branch Bindery, 1902 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




014 086 983 1 



